Assuming It Was There, Where Did It Go? - Clinical Chemistry

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1 University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Pittsburgh, PA; Departments of 2 ... correspondence to this author at: 3477 Euler Way, Rm. 3014, Pittsburgh, PA.
What Is Your Guess?

Assuming It Was There, Where Did It Go? Li Liu,1 Qian Sun,2 and Octavia M. Peck Palmer1,3*

CASE DESCRIPTION A 60-year-old woman with epilepsy and a long-term alcohol addiction presented to the emergency department with a 2-day history of nausea and vomiting. On day 2 of hospitalization, the patient complained of muscle weakness, dizziness, and intermittent abdominal pain. Laboratory results are shown in Table 1.

Table 1. Patient plasma chemistry proļ¬le during hospitalization.

Day

Phosphate, mg/dL

Calcium, mg/dL

Magnesium, mg/dL

Glucose, mg/dL

1 (admission)

Not ordered

7.7

1.7

222