• Mir Sadaqat Hassan Zafar, Javaid Iqbal Wani, Raiesa Karim, Mohammad Muzaffer Mir, and Parvaiz Ahmad Koul.
• Department of Internal and Pulmonary Medicine, Sher-i-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences, Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, India.
• Int J Appl Basic Med Res. 2014 Jan 1; 4 (1): 34-7.

BackgroundMagnesium is one of the major electrolytes, deficiency of which is frequently overlooked in critical illness, leading to an adverse clinical outcome if not monitored regularly.Settings And DesignSingle center prospective observational study of 2 years duration.Materials And MethodsThe subjects studied were monitored for serum magnesium levels 2 times: Day 1 and day 4 of intensive care unit (ICU) admission. Patients were divided into normomagnesemic and hypomagnesemic groups and compared for various parameters.ResultsOut of 70 critically ill-patients, 50 patients (71.43%) were normomagnesemic, 17 patients (24.29%) were hypomagnesemic and three patients were hypermagnesemic. The stay of the patients in ICU (P > 0.05), Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation-II (APACHE-II) scoring (P = 0.34) and co-morbidity (P = 0.360) showed an insignificant variation between the two groups. Associated electrolyte abnormalities in hypomagnesemic patients were hypokalemia (58.82%), hyponatremia (47.05%), hypocalcemia (70.58%) and hypophosphatemia (29.41%). About 76.47% of hypomagnesemic population was on magnesium lowering drugs while as 46% of normomagnesemic population was on magnesium lowering drugs (P = 0.030). Mortality of hypomagnesemic group was 74.47% while that of normomagnesemic group was 36% (P = 0.004).ConclusionHypomagnesemia is a significant electrolyte abnormality in critically ill-patients. Critically ill hypomagnesemic patients have higher mortality than the normomagnesemic patients.

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