Incidence of hyperkalemia in patients on long term treatment with indomethacin

Abstract EN

Objective : is to assess the effect of chronic use of indomethacin (nonsteriodal anti inflammatory drugs) on the level of serum potassium, among patients that use the drug for more than one year continuously Setting : The study was conducted in out patients department of rheumatology and physiotherapy ii Al salaam education hospital in Mosul during the period from November 2005 to April 2006.

Participants : Forty patients (24 male and 16 female) suffering from different rheumatological diseases (RA, OA… etc) using indomethacin as a treatment (25-50 mg 2 to 3 times daily) in a continues pattern for one year.

In addition to that there were thirty-four individual (23 male and 11 female) within the same age group, and on no drug treatment of any kind, having the same investigation and regarded as a control group.

Mean outcome measure: Serum potassium in the treated patients was compared with those measurements in the control group by using Duncan test.

Results: In patients using indomethacin, there was significant difference in the level of serum potassium (p < 0.01) in comparison with the control case’ Significant difference in the level of serum potassium (p < 0.05) was also noticed in comparison between male patients of the two groups.

No significant difference was noticed between female of the two groups.

Exclusively there was significant difference (p < 0.01) in the level of serum potassium in the age group of (50-59 year) among patient control.

In addition there was significant positive correlation between serum potassium concentration in patients on long term use of indomethacin and age of the patient (r = 0.49) (p= 0.001(.

Conclusion: chronic use of indomethcin is associated with increase level of serum potassium.