Potassium Imbalance in Patients with Hypertension and Acute Haemorrhagic Stroke in a Tertiary Level Hospital of Bangladesh.

Acute haemorrhagic strokes are most common in people with hypertension, which causes high morbidity and mortality in Bangladesh. In this study, we investigated that whether serum potassium level is associated with risk of haemorrhagic strokes in hypertensive patients or not. We conducted a cross-sectional descriptive study that was carried out in the Department of Medicine and Neurology of Mymensingh Medical College Hospital, Mymensingh from December 2019 to May 2020. Total 100 patients (Mean age: 59.5±15 years, 58% male and 42% female) of hypertension with acute haemorrhagic stroke were enrolled in this study considering inclusion (both sex, CT scan proven stroke) and exclusion criteria (patients with congestive cardiac failure, conn's syndrome and kidney diseases). Our results showed that significant number of patients (34.0%) had potassium imbalance, with hypokalaemia (k+ <3.5) present in 31.0% study patients and hyperkalaemia (k+ >5) found in 3.0% patients. The present study also revealed that majority of patients having potassium imbalance had lower ICH score. From these findings we can conclude that hypokalemia may be responsible for subsequent increase in hemorrahagic stroke incidents in hypertensive patients. However, association between severity of acute hemorrahagic stroke and potassium imbalance was found not significant.