Thursday March 6, 2008

Q; While you prescribe 15 mmol of intravenous (IV) potassium phosphate to patient, what amount of potassium is received by patient ?

A; About 20 meq

To be precise, 1 mmol of intravenous phophate delivers 1.46 meq of potassium in "K-phos rider".

To make it in round figure, 7.5 mmol of phosphate is equal to about 10 meq of potassium.

By mouth repletion of phosphate is preferable but if used, intravenous phosphate should be given very slowly. Usual recommended infusion rate is 5 mmol/hour. Rapid phosphate infusion may lead to precipitous fall in serum calcium, hypotension, and acute renal failure. Also, it may lead to hypomagnesemia, metastatic soft tissue calcifications, hypernatremia and volume loss from osmotic diuresis.



Reference: click to get article / abstract

Intravenous phosphate repletion regimen for critically ill patients with moderate hypophosphatemia - Critical Care Medicine. 23(7):1204-1210, July 1995.