Relationship between serum total magnesium and serum potassium in emergency surgical patients in a tertiary hospital in Ghana

Abstract

SUMMARYIntroduction: Potassium and magnesium are the two most abundant intra-cellular cations. They play pivotal roles in many essential biological processes. Deficiencies of these electrolytes are of clinical importance in hospitalised patients. Aim: To determine the relationship between serum total magnesium and potassium levels in adult patients requiring an emergency intra-abdominal surgery and the clinical utility of this relationship in the care of patients. Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted over a five month period at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital. All 101 adult patients admitted for emergency intra-abdominal surgery, who met the inclusion criteria and gave informed consent, were consecutively recruited and enrolled into the study. Patients' characteristics preoperative total serum magnesium, serum potassium and albumin levels were determined. Regression analysis and correlation coefficients were used to determine the relation between serum magnesium and potassium. Analysis was done using SPSS version 20. Results: Mean serum total magnesium and serum potassium were 0.66±0.20mmol/L and 3.79±0.65mmol/L respectively. There was a significant but weak positive correlation between serum hypokalaemia and serum magnesium levels. Pearson's correlation coefficient (2 tailed) was 0.21, R 2 = 0.04, p = value 0.038. Analysis generated a regression model: [Mg] = 0.06[K] + 0.42mmol/L, with a p-value = 0.038. Conclusion: A mathematical relationship was found between serum total magnesium and serum potassium among adult patients who require emergency intra-abdominal surgery. However, it had limited clinical utility.

A Study on Occurrence of Hypomagnesemia in Hypokalemia in a Tertiary Care Center

“…(13) Similar findings of frequent association between hypokalemia and hypomagnesemia were reported in previous studies. [5,6] Furthermore, in support of the results of this study concomitant Mg deficiency in K-depleted patients ranged from 38% to 42%., which was demonstrated by Whang et al [7] reported that 42% of patients on admission with hypokalemia also have concomitant hypomagnesemia. However, the findings of Deheinzelin et al [9] and Watson and O'Kell.…”

“…Hypokalemia has been found to be frequently associated with hypomagnesemia in hospitalized patients according to previous reports mainly from studies done among Caucasians. (5)(6)(7)(8)(9) Magnesium deficiency, when present, worsens hypokalemia by aggravating renal wasting of potassium and enhances the adverse effects of hypokalemia. Because both hypokalemia and hypomagnesemia can be induced by the same mechanisms (e.g., diuretic administration, primary hyperaldosteronism, renal tubular acidosis) attention in recent years has been focused on their co-occurrence.…”

A Nuisance-Free Inference Procedure Accounting for the Unknown Missingness with Application to Electronic Health Records

“…The Proposed method simplifies the body temperature and the white blood cell count as nonsignificant variables, which are identified as nonzero but with a very small effect using the CC method. It is also worthwhile to mention that the Proposed method signifies the magnesium level with a quite significant coefficient, which was extensively investigated in the scientific literature [33][34][35].…”

Hypomagnesemia and Outcomes in Hematologic Malignancies

“…Total serum magnesium measurements may actually overestimate the incidence of hypomagnesemia when hypoalbuminemia is present and thus serum ionized magnesium may better estimate magnesium levels [17]. Contradictory to this, subsequent studies have not found these relationships to be valid [18][19][20][21]. Further studies understanding whether magnesium levels fluctuate with albumin levels are needed.…”