Renal handling of potassium

The exact mechanism of the pentamidine-induced hyperkalemia has not yet been defined. Many different mechanisms can impair the renal handling of potassium and thus favor hyperkalemia in patients with AIDS. These include decreased renal function secondary to volume depletion, presence of under-lying renal disease, including tubular dysfunction with the possibility of hyporeninemic hypoaldos-teronism, hypoadrenalism, and the administration of drugs with potential for impairing renal potassium excretion (nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory agents, ACE inhibitors, potassium-sparing diuretics. 

Batlle DC,Tarka J, Kurtzman NA. Renal handling of potassium after chronic lithium administration. Clin Res 1983 31 424A. 

Perturbations in mono- and divalent cation renal handling have been reported in association with pentamidine administration. Several reports of hyperkalemia in association with pentamidine therapy have been recently published [132,134,136,137,167,168]. Lachaal and Venuto [132] in a retrospective review reported a very high incidence of hyperkalemia (5.1 to 8.7 mEq/ L) in 19 of 20 patients (95%). This incidence was greater than the 5% reported earlier [123], or the 24% reported subsequently [134] in 37 patients with AIDS, and was challenged as a possible overestimation [169]. The hyperkalemia usually correlates with the presence of decreased GFR [132,134]. In our clinical study [133] the mean serum potassium concentration tended to be higher in the AIDS patients that developed pentamidine nephrotoxicity than in those that did not (5.0+0.3 vs 4.3+0.2, respectively, p <0.055). No patient, however, had a serum potassium concentration higher than 6.0 mEq/L. Hyperkalemia induced-arrhythmias occur [170], and rarely may include cardiac arrest [171]. The hyperkalemia usually reversed on discontinuation of pentamidine, and although most patients required only conservative measures, occasionally dialysis was necessary [132]. 

Other unusual conditions that suggest aldosterone excess or deficiency but are not connected to the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system include Liddle s syndrome (pseudo hyper aldosteronism),which resembles primary aldosteronism clinically, but aldosterone production is low and hypertension is absent and Barttefs syndrome,which involves a prostaglandin-mediated renal potassium wasting and renal chloride handling defect, in which both aldosterone concentrations and renin activities are elevated. In renal tubular acidosis and pseudohypoaldosteronism, the clinical picture of hypoaldosteronism is seen concurrent with greater-than-normal concentrations of aldosterone. 

Velazquez, H., and F. S. Wright. 1986. Control by drugs of renal potassium handling. Annual Review of Pharmacology and Toxicology 26 293-309. 

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