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Sixty-eight-year-old patient with hypokalemia
G Innemee1, P H De Meijer, A E Meinders
1Department of General Internal Medicine, Leiden University Medical Center, P.O. Box 9600, 2300 RC, Leiden, The Netherlands.
The Netherlands Journal of Medicine
|March 14, 2001
Abstract:
A 68-year-old patient with severe hypokalemia and metabolic alkalosis is described. Six years before admission he had been treated for a small cell bronchial carcinoma. We discuss the diagnostic approach of hypokalemia and the way in which we reached the diagnosis. The patient suffered from metastatic small cell carcinoma with a very high plasma adrenocorticotropic hormone concentration, possibly due to production of corticotropin-releasing hormone by the malignancy.