Potassium disorders in pediatric emergency department: Clinical spectrum and management

Potassium abnormalities are frequent in intensive care but their incidence in the emergency department is unknown. We describe the spectrum of potassium abnormalities in our tertiary-level pediatric emergency department. Retrospective case-control study of all the patients admitted to a single-cente...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Archives de pédiatrie : organe officiel de la Société française de pédiatrie 2020-04, Vol.27 (3), p.146-151
Main Authors: Barbance, O., De Bels, D., Honoré, P.M., Bargalzan, D., Tolwani, A., Ismaili, K., Biarent, D., Redant, S.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Belgium - epidemiology
Biomarkers - blood
Case-Control Studies
Child
Child, Preschool
Dyskalemia
Emergency
Emergency Service, Hospital
Female
Humans
Hyperkalemia
Hyperkalemia - blood
Hyperkalemia - diagnosis
Hyperkalemia - epidemiology
Hyperkalemia - therapy
Hypokalemia
Hypokalemia - blood
Hypokalemia - diagnosis
Hypokalemia - epidemiology
Hypokalemia - therapy
Incidence
Infant
Infant, Newborn
Male
Pediatric
Potassium - blood
Retrospective Studies
Severity of Illness Index
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Summary:Potassium abnormalities are frequent in intensive care but their incidence in the emergency department is unknown. We describe the spectrum of potassium abnormalities in our tertiary-level pediatric emergency department. Retrospective case-control study of all the patients admitted to a single-center tertiary emergency department over a 2.5-year period. We compared patients with hypokalemia (6.0mEq/L) against a normal randomized population recruited on a 3:1 ratio with potassium levels between 3.5 and 5mEq/L. Between January 1, 2013 and August 31, 2016 we admitted 108,209 patients to our emergency department. A total of 9342 blood samples were tested and the following potassium measurements were found: 60 cases of hypokalemia (2.8±0.2mEq/L) and 55 cases of hyperkalemia (6.4±0.6mEq/L). In total, 200 patients with normokalemia were recruited (4.1±0.3mEq/L). The main causes of the disorders were non-specific: lower respiratory tract infection (23%) and fracture (15%) for hypokalemia, lower respiratory tract (21.8%) and ear–nose–throat infections (20.0%) for hyperkalemia. Patients with hyperkalemia had an elevated creatinine level (0.72±1.6 vs. 0.40±0.16mg/dL, P
ISSN:0929-693X
1769-664X
DOI:10.1016/j.arcped.2019.12.003