Hypomagnesemia versus hypokalemia in Patients withcongestive heart failure: The effect of severity of the disease

Abstract

ABSTRACTObjective: The present study was designed to examine the incidence of hypomagnesemia and hypokalemia in patients with congestive heart failure (CHF) and to evaluate the effect of the severity of the disease on the plasma level of these cations.Methods: The present study was conducted on Fifty patients with CHF who were randomly selected from the patients admitted to medical words at Ibn-Sena Teaching Hospital/ Mosul, during the period from March 2005 to December 2005.They were divided into 4 groups depending on severity of heart failure. The also included 30 apparently healthy volunteers as a control group. Serum potassium (Sk), magnesium (Smg), and left ventricular ejection fraction (EF%) were measured for all the participant in the study.The difference in the mean of the studied parameters between different patient groups and between patients and control group was studied using ANOVA test.Results: The mean of SMg was significantly higher in control group than that in group I, group II, group III, and group IV (p<0.0001). It was also significantly higher in group I than that in group II, group III, and group IV (p<0.0001). The mean of Sk was significantly higher in control group than that of group I (p<0.05), group III (p<0.005) and group IV (p<0.0001). It was also significantly higher in group II than that of group IV (p<0.05). The mean of EF% was significantly higher in control group than that of group I, group II, group III, and group IV (p<0.0001). It was also significantly higher in group I than that of group III (p<0.05) and group IV (p<0.01). Conclusion: The results of this study revealed that hypokalemia and hypomagnesemia are a common finding in patients with CHF, especially in severe cases.