Treatment of Severe Hyperkalemia: Confronting 4 Fallacies

Abstract

Severe hyperkalemia is a medical emergency that can cause lethal arrhythmias. Successful management requires monitoring of the electrocardiogram and serum potassium concentrations, the prompt institution of therapies that work both synergistically and sequentially, and timely repeat dosing as necessary. It is of concern then that, based on questions about effectiveness and safety, many physicians no longer use 3 key modalities in the treatment of severe hyperkalemia: sodium bicarbonate, sodium polystyrene sulfonate (Kayexalate [Concordia Pharmaceuticals Inc., Oakville, ON, Canada], SPS [CMP Pharma, Farmville, NC]), and hemodialysis with low potassium dialysate. After reviewing older reports and newer information, I believe that these exclusions are ill advised. In this article, I briefly discuss the treatment of severe hyperkalemia and detail why these modalities are safe and effective and merit inclusion in the treatment of severe hyperkalemia.