Pseudohyperkalemia: Hyperkalemia Cocktail or Alternative Diagnosis.

INTRODUCTION: Hyperkalemia is a commonly encountered clinical problem. Pseudohyperkalemia is believed to be an in vitro phenomenon that does not reflect in vivo serum potassium and therefore should not be treated. Here, we present a case who unfortunately underwent unnecessary treatment because of failure to detect the common lab abnormality of pseudohyperkalemia. CASE PRESENTATION: A 91-year-old female with a history of chronic lymphocytic leukemia presented to the emergency with nausea and vomiting 24 hours after her first chemotherapy with chlorambucil. Physical examination was overall unremarkable. She had a leukocytosis of 210 × 103/µL with 96% lymphocytes along with chronic anemia with hemoglobin of 8.1 g/dL. Her initial sodium and potassium levels were normal. During the clinical course, her potassium progressively worsened and failed to improve despite standard medical treatment. Patient ultimately underwent dialysis. CONCLUSIONS: Differentiating true hyperkalemia from pseudohyperkalemia is very important in selected group of patients to avoid unnecessary medications, higher level of care, and unnecessary procedure including dialysis. We want to emphasize the importance of simple yet profound knowledge of technique of blood draws and basic metabolic panel processing for every clinician in day-to-day practice.

Comparing outcomes of HIV versus non-HIV patients requiring mechanical ventilation.

BACKGROUND: Mechanical ventilation (MV) is a predictor of mortality in patients infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in the intensive care unit (ICU). Patients with HIV-infections are admitted to the ICU for a variety of reasons that frequently require intubation. While survival rates for HIV-infected patients continue to improve, ICU admission rates have remained consistent. METHODS: To observe the consequences of MV in HIV-infected patients, we conducted a retrospective chart review on patients with HIV (n=55) vs. matched HIV-negative patients (n=55) who required MV over a one-year period and compared the groups for differences in outcome and complications. RESULTS: The HIV group had twice the number of deaths (44% vs. 22%, all-cause mortality) (P=0.01). Among the HIV-positive group, 5 of 55 patients required tracheostomy and prolonged MV, compared to 15 of 55 in the control group (9% and 27%, respectively). Successful extubation was virtually identical (47% MV vs. 50% control). Ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) was significantly higher among HIV-positive cases (39 of 55 HIV vs. 14 of 55 non-HIV) (P=0.05). Regression analysis revealed that hypotension, hypoalbuminemia, and fever predicted a poorer outcome. Low CD4 cell counts were strongly associated with mortality. CONCLUSION: HIV-infected patients requiring MV have significantly higher mortality and VAP rates than HIV-negative patients. Since VAP is associated with a poor prognosis, discovering ways to prevent it in the HIV-infected patient may improve outcome.