Case Report
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2017. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Cases. Feb 16, 2017; 5(2): 56-60
Published online Feb 16, 2017. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v5.i2.56
Rhabdomyolysis following severe hypokalemia caused by familial hypokalemic periodic paralysis
Young-Lee Jung, Jae-Young Kang
Young-Lee Jung, Jae-Young Kang, Division of Nephrology, Department of Internal Medicine, Sejong General Hospital, Bucheon 422-711, South Korea
Author contributions: All authors contributed to the acquisition of data, writing, and recision of this manuscript.
Institutional review board statement: This case report was exempt from the Institutional Review Board standards at Sejong General Hospital.
Informed consent statement: The patient involved in this study gave her written informed consent authorizing use and disclosure of her protected health information.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All authors have no conflicts of interests to declare.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Young-Lee Jung, MD, Physician of Internal Medicine, Division of Nephrology, Department of Internal Medicine, Sejong General Hospital, 91-121 Sosabon-2-dong, Sosa-gu, Bucheon-si, Gyeonggi-do, Bucheon 422-711, South Korea. youngleeyo@hanmail.net
Telephone: +82-10-89073174 Fax: +82-32-3401236
Received: August 8, 2016
Peer-review started: August 16, 2016
First decision: September 28, 2016
Revised: October 17, 2016
Accepted: December 13, 2016
Article in press: December 14, 2016
Published online: February 16, 2017
Processing time: 192 Days and 0.8 Hours
Abstract

Rhabdomyolysis continues to appear with increasing frequency and represents a medical emergency requiring rapid appropriate treatment. One of the unusual causes of nontraumatic rhabdomyolysis is hypokalemic periodic paralysis without secondary causes. Primary hypokalemic periodic paralysis is a rare genetic disease characterized by episodic attacks of muscle weakness due to decreases in serum potassium. A 30-year-old woman who had 3 episodic attacks of hypokalemic periodic paralysis was admitted in emergency room with sudden onset symmetrical muscle weakness. After several hours, she started to complain myalgia and severe ache in both calves without any changes. Laboratory test showed markedly elevated creatine phosphokinase, lactic dehydrogenase levels with hypokalemia, rhabdomyolysis resulting from hypokalemia was diagnosed. Here, we report an unusual case of rhabdomyolysis caused by severe hypokalemia, which was suggested a result of familial hypokalemic periodic paralysis.

Keywords: Rhabdomyolysis; Hypokalemia; Familial hypokalemic periodic paralysis

Core tip: Familial hypokalemic periodic paralysis is characterized by periodic attacks of muscle weakness due to decreases in serum potassium, caused by genetic defect of potassium-sensitive muscle membrane excitability with familial occurrence. Rhabdomyolysis following severe hypokalemia as the manifestation of familial hypokalemic periodic paralysis is rare, but it occasionally develops acute kidney injury, disseminated intravascular coagulation, arrhythmia as a potentially life threatening complication promptly recognized by the treating physician. The authors pointed to early detection of rhabdomyolysis as a serious complication of severe hypokalemia, and ruling out other causes of hypokalemia by step-wise approach, finally reached the diagnosis with the familial hypokalemic periodic paralysis.