title: Agreement of arterial sodium and arterial potassium levels with venous sodium and venous potassium in patients admitted to intensive care unit.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Electrolyte abnormalities are one of the common causes of morbidity and mortality in critically ill patients. The turnaround time for electrolyte reporting should be as low as possible. Electrolytes are measured conventionally in serum obtained from venous blood by electrolyte analyser which takes 20 to 30 min. Point of care analysers are now available where in electrolytes can be measured in arterial blood within 5 min. This study was done to study the agreement of arterial sodium and arterial potassium with venous sodium and venous potassium levels.
  
  
  METHODS
  Venous sodium and venous potassium levels and arterial sodium and arterial potassium levels were analysed on 206 patient samples admitted to Intensive Care Unit (ICU). The venous values were compared with the arterial values for correlation. Venous sodium was compared with arterial sodium by spearman correlation. Venous potassium was compared with arterial potassium by pearson correlation.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The mean value of arterial sodium was 134 and venous sodium was 137. The mean value of arterial potassium was 3.6 and venous potassium was 4.1. The correlation coefficient obtained for sodium was 0.787 and correlation coefficient obtained for potassium was 0.701. There was positive correlation of arterial sodium and arterial potassium with venous sodium and venous potassium indicating agreement between the parameters.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Arterial sodium and arterial potassium can be used instead of venous sodium and venous potassium levels in management of critically ill patients.
authors: Associate Professor, Department of Biochemistry, Pondicherry Institute of Medical Sciences , Pondicherry, India .
authors: Sunil Kumar
authors: SK
authors: Nanda
authors: Assistant Professor, Department of Biochemistry, Pondicherry Institute of Medical Sciences , Pondicherry, India .
authors: Lopamudra
authors: L
authors: Ray
authors: Tutor, Department of Biochemistry, Pondicherry Institute of Medical Sciences , Pondicherry, India .
authors: Asha
authors: A
authors: Dinakaran
keywords: Critical Illness; Electrolytes; Potassium; Sodium