Renal potassium wasting in renal tubular acidosis (RTA)

IN TWO PATIENTS WITH CLASSIC RENAL TUBULAR ACIDOSIS (RTA) AND IN TWO PATIENTS WITH RTA ASSOCIATED WITH THE FANCONI SYNDROME, RENAL POTASSIUM WASTING PERSISTED DESPITE SUSTAINED CORRECTION OF ACIDOSIS: (a) during moderate degrees of hypokalemia, daily urinary excretion of potassium exceeded 80 mEq in each patient; (b) during more severe degrees of hypokalemia, daily urinary excretion of potassium exceeded 40 mEq in two patients and 100 mEq in another. These urinary excretion rates of potassium are more than twice those observed in potassium-depleted normal subjects with even minimal degrees of hypokalemia. The persistence of renal potassium wasting may have resulted in part from hyperaldosteronism, since urinary aldosterone was frankly increased in two patients and was probably abnormally high in the others relative to the degree of their potassium depletion. The hyperaldosteronism persisted despite sustained correction of acidosis, a normal sodium intake, and no reduction in measured plasma volume, and was not associated with hypertension; its cause was not defined. In the two patients with classic RTA, neither renal potassium wasting nor hyperaldosteronism could be explained as a consequence of a gradient restriction on renal H(+) - Na(+) exchange because the urinary pH remained greater than, or approximately equal to, the normal arterial pH or considerably greater than the minimal urinary pH attained during acidosis. The findings provide no support for the traditional view that renal potassium wasting in either classic RTA or RTA associated with the Fanconi syndrome is predictably corrected solely by sustained correction of acidosis with alkali therapy.