Endocrine Abstracts

Hyponatremia is the electrolyte disorder most commonly encountered in hospitalized patients. The prevalence and characteristics of patients admitted with hyponatremia are analyzed in this study.

Description of methods/design: cross sectional study is carried out at the University General Hospital of Valencia, comprising a population of 350,000. 681 of the 30676 patients admitted during the period from January 2014 to December 2015 had hyponatremia included as a diagnosis at the discharge report. 72 patients admitted in Endocrinology due to hyponatremia are analyzed. We analyzed patient characteristics, mean length of stay, treatment used, serum sodium at admission and discharge, urine and plasma osmolality, urinary sodium and potassium, TSH and cortisol levels, as well as mortality and the presenter prior to hyponatremia.

Results: Diagnosis of hyponatremia in the discharge report appeared in 2.5%. Of these, 9.6% were admitted in Endocrinology because hyponatremia was the main diagnosis. Of the 72 patients there were 57 women, with a mean age of 77.8±13.61 years. Mean length of stay was 5.7±3.5 days and the months of May and June the highest incidence. The most common causes were diuretics (38%), SIADH (24%) and multifactorial etiology (23%). Sodium income was 119±6 mEq/l and at discharge was 132±3 mEq/l. 31% of patients had low sodium serum levels before admission. Mortality was 2.8%.

Conclusion: Among admissions by hyponatremia, most are women over 75 years and the diuretics were the main etiology. The previous high prevalence of hyponatremia in these patients suggests that a careful management and monitoring of them might prevent subsequent admissions for this cause.