Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2022 Jan;32(1):e2262.
doi: 10.1002/rmv.2262. Epub 2021 Jun 2.

Epidemiology, prognosis and management of potassium disorders in Covid-19

Maryam Noori  1 , Seyed A Nejadghaderi  2   3 , Mark J M Sullman  4   5 , Kristin Carson-Chahhoud  6   7 , Ali-Asghar Kolahi  8 , Saeid Safiri  9   10
Affiliations
Review

Epidemiology, prognosis and management of potassium disorders in Covid-19

Maryam Noori et al. Rev Med Virol. 2022 Jan.

Abstract

Coronavirus disease (Covid-19), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), is currently the largest health crisis facing most countries. Several factors have been linked with a poor prognosis for this disease, including demographic factors, pre-existing comorbidities and laboratory parameters such as white blood cell count, D-dimer, C-reactive protein, albumin, lactate dehydrogenase, creatinine and electrolytes. Electrolyte abnormalities particularly potassium disorders are common among Covid-19 patients. Based on our pooled analysis, hypokalemia and hyperkalemia occur in 24.3% and 4.15% of Covid-19 patients, respectively. Potassium level deviation from the normal range may increase the chances of unfavorable outcomes and even death. Therefore, this article reviewed the epidemiology of potassium disorders and explained how hypokalemia and hyperkalemia are capable of deteriorating cardiac outcomes and the prognosis of Covid-19 for infected patients. The article finishes by highlighting some important considerations in the management of hypokalemia and hyperkalemia in these patients.

Keywords: Covid-19; SARS-CoV-2; hypokalemia; review; serum potassium.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that there is no conflict of interests.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Hypokalemia prevalence in Covid‐19 patients. Forest plot showing the prevalence of hypokalemia in Covid‐19 patients. The squares indicate weight of each study in random‐effect model. The vertical dashed line indicates the overall pooled estimate of hypokalemia prevalence and the diamond the 95% confidence interval around that pooled estimate. The forest plot was generated using STATA 15.0 (STATA Corp, LLC, TX)
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Hyperkalemia prevalence in Covid‐19 patients. Forest‐plot showing prevalence of hyperkalemia in Covid‐19 patients. The squares indicate weight of each study in random‐effect model. The vertical dashed line indicates the overall pooled estimate of hyperkalemia prevalence and the diamond the 95% confidence interval around that pooled estimate. The forest plot was generated using STATA 15.0 (STATA Corp, LLC, TX)
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Zhu N, Zhang D, Wang W, et al. A novel coronavirus from patients with pneumonia in China, 2019. N. Engl J Med. 2020;382:727‐733. 10.1056/NEJMoa2001017 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Sanche S, Lin YT, Xu C, Romero‐Severson E, Hengartner N, Ke R. High contagiousness and rapid spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. Emerg Infect Dis. 2020;26:1470‐1477. 10.3201/eid2607.200282 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Huang L, Zhang X, Zhang X, et al. Rapid asymptomatic transmission of COVID‐19 during the incubation period demonstrating strong infectivity in a cluster of youngsters aged 16‐23 years outside Wuhan and characteristics of young patients with COVID‐19: a prospective contact‐tracing study. J Infect. 2020;80:e1‐e13. 10.1016/j.jinf.2020.03.006 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. WHO coronavirus disease (COVID‐19) dashboard. https://covid19.who.int/2021
    1. Lu R, Zhao X, Li J, et al Genomic characterisation and epidemiology of 2019 novel coronavirus: implications for virus origins and receptor binding. Lancet. 2020;395:565‐574. 10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30251-8 - DOI - PMC - PubMed

Publication types