Sahul Hameed Peer Mohamed 1 , Gopal Bagialakshmi 2 , Nagarajan Ragavan 3 , Rajendran Kapil 4 , Santhana Krishnan Ramesh Kuma
BACKGROUND Serum magnesium levels in critically-ill ICU patients and its correlation with the prognosis of the patients have been studied. Low serum magnesium levels were seen in critically ill and it was associated increased mortality. MATERIALS AND METHODS It is a prospective observational study involving 100 critically-ill medical patients admitted in Intensive Medicine Care Unit of Government Rajaji Hospital, Madurai. A detailed medical history, clinical examination, random blood sugar, serum electrolytes (sodium, potassium, magnesium, calcium), ECG, ABG analysis, complete haemogram and APACHE scoring were done. Chisquare test was used to assess the statistical significance of qualitative data. RESULTS Of the 100 patients, 52 (52%) were males and 48 (48%) were females. Age group from 51-60 years contributed as the major study population. On admission, 50% (50/100) patients had hypomagnesaemia, 39% (39/100) had normal serum magnesium levels and 11% had hypermagnesaemia. The hypomagnesaemia group had increased number of days in ICU, increased incidences of ventilatory support and more duration of ventilation and higher mortality compared with normo or hypermagnesaemia group. CONCLUSION Hypomagnesaemia in critically-ill medical patients is a poor prognostic indicator in terms of duration of IMCU stay, ventilator dependency and all-cause mortality.
