[2 cases of severe hypokalemia with acute rhabdomyolysis]

We report two cases of acute rhabdomyolysis due to severe hypokalemia. The first case appears to be caused by a chronic dietary potassium deficiency, responsible also for the elevation of blood pressure and the impairment of myocardial contractility. The administration of hydrochlorothiazide, albeit associated with captopril, could have decompensated the potassium balance, thus precipitating the acute rhabdomyolysis. More commonly the second case is due to acute potassium losses induced by a trivial enteritis in a hypertensive patient who was taking thiazide diuretics for a long period of time. We emphasize that chronic dietary potassium deficiency may represent a predisposing variable to acute rhabdomyolysis, which is generally precipitated by the superimposition of other potassium lowering factors.