Copyright
©The Author(s) 2017. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
Severe hyperkalemia following blood transfusions: Is there a link?
Christos V Rizos, Haralampos J Milionis, Moses S Elisaf, Department of Internal Medicine, Medical School, University of Ioannina, 45110 Ioannina, Greece
Author contributions: All authors contributed equally in data acquisition, analysis and interpretation of the data, drafting and critical revision of the manuscript.
Institutional review board statement: This case report was exempt from the Institutional Review Board standards at University Hospital of Ioannina.
Informed consent statement: The patient involved in this study gave his written informed consent authorizing use and disclosure of his protected health information.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors have no conflicts of interests to declare.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Moses S Elisaf, MD, FASA, FRPSH, Professor of Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine, Medical School, University of Ioannina, Stavros Niarchos Avenue, 45110 Ioannina, Greece. egepi@cc.uoi.gr
Telephone: +30-26-51007509 Fax: +30-26-51007016
Received: September 7, 2016
Peer-review started: September 8, 2016
First decision: September 30, 2016
Revised: October 6, 2016
Accepted: October 22, 2016
Article in press: October 24, 2016
Published online: January 6, 2017
Peer-review started: September 8, 2016
First decision: September 30, 2016
Revised: October 6, 2016
Accepted: October 22, 2016
Article in press: October 24, 2016
Published online: January 6, 2017
Core Tip
Core tip: Blood transfusion is associated with a wide range of potential complications. Among them, the increase of serum potassium levels is sometimes overlooked. Hyperkalemia is a potential deadly complication, especially when the patient has already increased potassium levels at baseline. A number of pathogenetic mechanisms associated with the development of hyperkalemia in patients receiving transfusions are discussed in the present case report. Moreover, the necessary precautions for minimizing the risk of transfusion-induced hyperkalemia are also presented.