Clinical Chemistry
HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS
QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced]


     

Clinical Chemistry 54: 449-451, 2008; 10.1373/clinchem.2007.095216
This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in Web of Science
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow reprints & permissions
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via Web of Science (2)
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Abraham, B.
Right arrow Articles by Bornhorst, J. A.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Abraham, B.
Right arrow Articles by Bornhorst, J. A.
(Clinical Chemistry. 2008;54:449-451.)
© 2008 American Association for Clinical Chemistry, Inc.

Letters to the Editor

Reverse Pseudohyperkalemia in a Leukemic Patient

Boban Abraham1, Ijaz Fakhar2, Anurag Tikaria1, LaDonna Hocutt3, Jim Marshall3, Sundararaman Swaminathan2 and Joshua A. Bornhorst4,a

1 Department of Internal Medicine
2 Department of Nephrology
3 Clinical Laboratory
4 Department of Pathology, University of Arkansas for, Medical Sciences, Little Rock, Arkansas 72205

aAddress correspondence to this author at: University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, College of Medicine, Department of Pathology, 4301 W Markham St, Little Rock, AR 72205, Fax 501-526-4621, e-mail jabornhorst@UAMS.edu

The first 20% of the full text of this article appears below.


To the Editor:

Hyperkalemia is a potentially fatal electrolyte abnormality that must be differentiated from pseudohyperkalemia, which can occur when potassium is released from ruptured platelets or blood cells during the clotting process in serum specimens (1)(2). We describe a case of "reverse" pseudohyperkalemia in a patient with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) in whom potassium concentrations in plasma specimens exceeded concentrations observed in serum by more than 1.3 mmol/L (3).

A 49-year-old woman with stage IV CLL was admitted for chemotherapy. Her white cell count (WBC) was 364 x 109 cells/L (96% lymphocytes) and 100 x 109 platelets/L. The patient was treated with rituximab, cyclophosphamide, and fludarabine and received bicarbonate and allopurinol. After therapy, the potassium concentration obtained from a lithium-heparin specimen with separator gel was 10.7 mmol/L on a Beckman LX-20 chemistry analyzer (Beckman Coulter). A second lithium-heparin plasma specimen yielded a potassium concentration of 11.2 mmol/L. . . . [Full Text of this Article]




eLetters:

Read all eLetters

Possible artefactual hyperkalemia
Christian P PERIER
Clinical Chemistry Online, 25 Feb 2008 [Full text]
Re: Possible artefactual hyperkalemia
Joshua Bornhorst
Clinical Chemistry Online, 10 Mar 2009 [Full text]

HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS
Copyright © 2008 by the American Association for Clinical Chemistry.