A Pilot Study to Assess Serum Potassium Levels and Haemolysis in Red Cell Units

@#Introduction: Percentage of haemolysis is widely used as a quality parameter to assess red blood cell viability in blood banking. In certain blood banks, serum potassium level is used due to the unavailability of the former test. The relationship between these two tests, however, is still unclear. The objective of this study is to determine the association between haemolysis measured using two different methods for quality control. Methods: A total of forty-four samples of packed red cell in citrate-phosphate-dextrose with optisol were randomly selected from donation drives. Nine millilitres of blood was collected weekly starting from day-2 of storage, followed by day-7, 14, 21, 28, 35 and 42 for assessment of red blood cell haemolysis by measuring serum potassium level and percentage of haemolysis. Results: These two parameters were correlated significantly with a positive moderate linear relationship on day 7, 21 and 28 with r = 0.393, 0.448 and 0.425, respectively and p-values less than 0.01. The linear regression analysis showed there was a significant regression equation which could be used to predict the serum potassium level from the percentage of haemolysis. Conclusion: There were significant increases in the percentage of haemolysis and serum potassium level in the packed red cell units with storage. The serum potassium level would be able to be predicted from the percentage of haemolysis using the regression equations on day 7, 21 and 28. The serum potassium measurement could be used as an alternative test to the percentage of haemolysis before issuing blood.

Changes in potassium concentration and gene expression in mice fed a high-fat diet / 동물의과학연구지

Obesity is a risk factor for various diseases, including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, renal disease, hypertension, cancer, and neural disease. Adipose tissue in animals is important for the mobilization of lipids, milk production, deposition of fat in different depots, and muscle and meat production. Understanding the genetic and physiological causes of metabolic disease is a priority in biomedical genome research. In this study, we examined several variables in mice fed a high-fat diet, including serum composition, body weight, total calorie intake, and differentially expressed genes. Body weight and blood glucose levels were not significantly different between animals fed high-fat and normal diets. However, high-fat diet groups showed reduced calorie and food intakes. Levels of sodium, ionized calcium, glucose, hematocrit, hemoglobin, pH, PCO2, PO2, TCO2 +, HCO3 +, base excess, and SO2 in the blood were not significantly different between mice fed high-fat and normal diets. Serum potassium concentration, however, was lower in mice a high-fat diet. Differentially expressed genes were also compared between the two groups. The purpose of this study was to discover new genes as a result of annealing control primer (ACP) PCR using 20 random primers. Five down regulated genes were identified and three of others were upregulated by high-fat diet. Known genes were excluded from this result. In addition, the relationships among candidate genes and high-fat diet should be investigated according to potassium concentration in the blood. In conclusion, mice fed normal and high-fat diets showed no significant difference in body weight, whereas high-fat diet led to changes in blood composition and differential expression of several genes. These findings may provide a better understanding of the mechanisms underlying the association between obesity and metabolic diseases.

The Significance of Plasma Potassium Level in Pseudohyperkalemia with Thrombocytosis / 대한소아혈액종양학회지

PURPOSE: As blood coagulates, potassium is released from cells, causing the concentration of potassium in serum to be slightly higher than that of plasma. We measured serum and plasma potassium levels simultaneously to evaluate the significance of plasma potassium especially in the patients with thrombocytosis. METHODS: The study was designed into two steps. To determine the relationship between platelet count and serum potassium level, the subjects of the first study were 140 children admitted to the National Medical Center (NMC) from January 1996 to June 1997. To determine the significance of plasma potassium level in pseudohyperkalemia with thrombocytosis, the subjects of the second study were 80 children admitted to the NMC from June 1997 to June to 1998. All of them are 1 month to 14 years old. RESULTS: 1) There was no relationship between the platelet count and serum potassium levels in the control group with platelet count from 150x109/L to 400x10(9)/L (r=0.07), but there was significant relationship in the group with platelet count above 400x10(9)/L (r=0.41, P<0.01). 2) As platelet counts increased, the differences between the serum and plasma potassium concentration increased (r=0.518, P<0.01). CONCLUSION: The clinician should pay attention to the possibility of the pseudohyperk alemia when there is thrombocytosis with hyperkalemia without specific hyperkalemic symptoms or EKG changes. Plasma potassium level will be helpful for the accurate assesment of potassium concentration.

A SURVEY ON POTASSIUM INTAKES AND SERUM POTASSIUM CONTENTS OF POPULATION IN THE AREAS WITH DIFFERENT OCCURRENCE RATES OF GOSSYPOL RELATED HYPOKALEMIA / 营养学报

The result of a nutritional survey on potassium intakes of population and serum potassium contents of healthy adults in Shanghai (high occurrence of hypokalemia), Sichun (moderate occurrence of hypokalemia) and Shandong (null occurrence of hypokalemia) revealed that the average daily potassium intakes for the three areas were 60.1?16.6, 54.6? 13.4 and 58.7? 11.1 mmol per capita per day respectively; The serum potassium contents of the three areas were 4.2?0.3,4.0 ?0.3 and 4.2?0.4 mmol/L respectively. These results indicated that the daily potassium intakes and serum potassium contents between Shanghai and Shandong were not significantly different and might suggest that the occurrence of gossypol related hypokalemia in Shanghai and Sichun could not be attributed to the low potassium intakes and low serum potassium contents of the population.