title: Autopsy report on pseudo-Bartter syndrome with renal calcification induced by diuretics and diet pills.
abstract: A woman in her mid-forties had repeated vomiting and diarrhoea accompanied by muscle weakness soon after she started taking seven different diet pills imported from Thailand. After she had taken the pills for 8 days, respiratory depression progressed rapidly to arrest. Blood tests at the Emergency Department showed severe hypokalaemia with metabolic alkalosis. We diagnosed that she had developed pseudo-Bartter syndrome from the findings based on ionic abnormalities and high renin and aldosterone levels, and hyperplasia of the juxtaglomerular apparatus. A postmortem blood analysis indicated subtherapeutic levels of furosemide. We concluded that the patient died from pseudo-Bartter syndrome, which was triggered by chronic self-administration of furosemide and aggravated by the diet pills. This is the first pseudo-Bartter syndrome autopsy report to show histological localisation of calcification in the kidneys.
authors.affiliation: The University of Tokyo, Forensic Medicine, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, 113-0033 Tokyo, Japan.
authors.forename: Kana
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Unuma
authors.forename: Akihiro
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Tojo
authors.forename: Kazuki
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Harada
authors.forename: Kanju
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Saka
authors.forename: Makoto
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Nakajima
authors.forename: Takeshi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ishii
authors.forename: Toshiro
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Fujita
authors.forename: Ken-Ichi
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Yoshida