Prevalence and Predictors of Rhabdomyolysis in Patients with Hypokalemia

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Abstract
Hypokalemia is a commonly reported electrolyte disorder1 , 2 and an established cause of rhabdomyolysis in humans and laboratory animals.3 , 4 However, the prevalence of rhabdomyolysis in patients with hypokalemia is not known.1 , 2 To determine the prevalence and the predictors of rhabdomyolysis in hypokalemia, we reviewed all medical admissions for an 18-month period. Four hundred thirty-one patients (4.1 percent) were found to have hypokalemia (defined as a serum potassium concentration of 5 6 7 8 — were excluded, as were those with elevated serum creatine kinase values before hypokalemia was recognized. Of the 100 remaining patients (68 women and 32 men), 28 had biochemical evidence of rhabdomyolysis, as defined by a rise in the serum creatine kinase level to more than 9598 μkat per liter in women and more than 11,988 μkat per liter in men. The clinical and biochemical characteristics of the patients with rhabdomyolysis and the patients without rhabdomyolysis were compared, and the variables predicting the presence of rhabdomyolysis were generated by iteratively reweighted least-squares multiple logistic-regression analysis.