whats new in hyperkalemia

Hyperkalemia in young children is a rare phenomenon and in many cases caused by hemolysis in the specimen due to difficulties in obtaining a sample. However, hyperkalemia can also be a sign of a rare Mendelian syndrome known as familial hyperkalemic hypertension or pseudohypoaldosteronism type II. This disease is characterized by hyperkalemia, hypertension, and mild hyperchloremic metabolic acidosis (with normal anion gap) despite normal glomerular filtration. Full recovery of these abnormalities with thiazide diuretics is essential not to miss the diagnosis of this syndrome...

Isotonic saline and buffered crystalloid solutions may carry an equivalent risk of acute kidney injury in critically ill patients. In hemodialyzed patients, highly dialyzable beta-blockers are less cardioprotective than non-dialyzable beta-blockers, cooling the dialyzate may protect their cerebral white matter and too much parenteral iron may be deleterious. A promising treatment for amyloid deposits is underway. A well tolerated treatment for hyperkalemia has emerged. Low serum magnesium and diminished phosphaturia may be associated with an increased risk of chronic kidney disease...

UNLABELLED: No large cohort study has yet determined the incidence of acute kidney injury (AKI) in children with heart failure treated with renin-angiotensin system (RAS) inhibitors. We thus retrospectively analyzed the incidence and risk factors for severe AKI (stages 2-3 according to the Kidney Disease Improving Global Outcomes (KDIGO) guidelines) at our institutions from 2008 to 2011. Among 312 children (162 boys; median age, 7.3 months), 59 cases of AKI occurred in 45 children. The incidence of AKI was 14...

Hyperkalemia is a common clinical problem. While several options are available to treat acute hyperkalemia, there are few options for long-term treatment. The use of oral potassium binders might be such an option. Sodium zirconium cyclosilicate and patiromer are two new oral potassium binders awaiting approval. The efficacy of these novel potassium-lowering agents were tested in several phase 3 short-term studies published in late 2014.

Primary aldosteronism (PA) seems to be a pathogenetically heterogenous disease. It is suggested that approximately 30% of all hypertensive patients are affected by this disease. Autonomous hypersecretion of aldosterone, which is observed in this patient group, may be caused by an adrenal adenoma (aldosteronoma), hyperplasia of the zona glomerulosa, mutation of the KCNJ5 potassium channel, or other rare pathogenetic factors. Contrary to what was believed before, PA may be the cause of resistant hypertension rather than mild hypertension, while 70% of the patients have normal serum potassium levels rather than hypokalemia (previously believed to be a classical PA symptom)...

The evolution of strategies for the use of spironolactone and its analogue, eplerenone, has, over the years, encompassed favourable modification of the natural history of symptomatic heart failure in subjects with subnormal left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF), and mitigation of the risk of new-onset atrial fibrillation in mildly symptomatic systolic heart failure. Given the fact that these benefits might be attributable, at least in part, to mitigation of severity of diastolic dysfunction when the latter co-exists with subnormal LVEF, what needs to be explored is the possibility of similar benefits from the use of these agents in patients such as those with hypertension, and aortic valve stenosis, in whom left ventricular dysfunction is of the predominantly diastolic subtype...

BACKGROUND: Hyperkalaemia is a common potentially fatal complication of chronic kidney disease (CKD). It may manifest as electrocardiogram (ECG) changes, the earliest of which is T-wave 'tenting'. However, this occurs in less than half of episodes of hyperkalaemia. The aim of this study was to determine what other clinical features relate to the probability of T-wave tenting; and if there is a longer-term survival difference between patients who develop tenting and those who do not. METHOD: One hundred and forty-five patients with end-stage renal disease who had standard 12-lead ECG and concurrent serum potassium measurement were enrolled...

WHAT IS KNOWN AND OBJECTIVE: Treatment for hypertension with verapamil has a favourable renoprotective effect and is generally considered safe in patients with mild to moderate renal failure. In this report, we highlight the vulnerability of patients with mild to moderate renal failure to verapamil side effects especially in the presence of hyperkalaemia. CASE SUMMARY AND WHAT IS NEW: We report two cases of junctional bradycardia with slow release (SR) verapamil therapy in the presence of mild hyperkalaemia in patients with mild to moderate chronic renal failure...

Cyclophilins (Cyps), the intracellular receptors for Cyclosporine A (CsA), are responsible for peptidyl-prolyl cis-trans isomerisation and for chaperoning several membrane proteins. Those functions are inhibited upon CsA binding. Albeit its great benefits as immunosuppressant, the use of CsA has been limited by undesirable nephrotoxic effects, including sodium retention, hypertension, hyperkalemia, interstial fibrosis and progressive renal failure in transplant recipients. In this report, we focused on the identification of novel CypB-interacting proteins to understand the role of CypB in kidney function and, in turn, to gain further insight into the molecular mechanisms of CsA-induced toxicity...

PURPOSE: To determine the incidence of hyperkalemia-associated adverse outcomes among ambulatory patients with diabetes newly initiating renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system (RAAS) inhibitor therapy and to examine to what extent increasingly restrictive definitions of hyperkalemia-associated outcomes influenced incidence estimates. METHODS: Retrospective cohort study of 27 355 individuals with diabetes who were new users of RAAS inhibitors at three integrated healthcare systems...

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: The review provides an up-to-date information to the anaesthesiologist about the more frequent and important neuromuscular disorders for which new basic insights or clinical implications have been reported. RECENT FINDINGS: The findings include the mechanisms of the hyperkalemia after succinylcholine in patients with upregulation of acetylcholine receptors. New insights into the mechanism of malignant hyperthermia-like reactions such as rhabdomyolysis during anaesthesia in patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy have been published...

Treatment of resistant hypertension requires confirmation of true resistance, diagnosis and treatment of secondary causes of hypertension, adoption of appropriate lifestyle modifications, and effective use of multidrug antihypertensive regimens. Excessive volume retention often underlies resistant hypertension, so diuretics are generally necessary to achieve blood pressure (BP) goals. Although treatment regimens consisting of 3 or more agents have not been systematically evaluated, the author has found a triple regimen consisting of a thiazide diuretic, a calcium channel blocker, and an angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitor or angiotensin receptor blocker (ARB) to be generally effective and well tolerated...

With the expression cloning of the subunits of the epithelial sodium channel, a new era has evolved in our basic understanding of the low-renin forms of human hypertension. The monogenic hypertensive syndromes manifest dysregulation of the epithelial sodium channel in the cortical collecting tubule. These rare syndromes provide a schema for organizing our thinking about the more common form(s) of low renin hypertension, and raise the possibility that dysregulation of sodium channel activity and consequent salt retention and volume expansion provide a basic pathophysiological mechanism for low-renin hypertension...

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