Patients presenting with severe hypotonic hyponatremia: etiological factors, assessment, and outcomes.

Abstract

Although hospital-acquired hyponatremia is well described, severe community-acquired hyponatremia has been studied less extensively. To assess characteristics and outcomes of patients admitted with severe hypotonic hyponatremia (SHH) (defined as serum sodium ≤ 120 mmol/L). All patients with serum sodium of ≤ 120 mmol/L who were admitted to 2 large teaching hospitals from January 2000 to August 2007 were identified, and data were obtained from medical records. Main outcome measures were incidence of osmotic demyelination and mortality. Two hundred fifty-five patients were admitted who had SHH (female to male ratio 2:1), and the mean age was 72 ± 14 years. The most common etiological factors w..