How frequently have you seen hypokalemia play a role in ventricular arrhythmias, and is there a baseline goal K level to aim for in these patients to lower the risk of arrhythmia recurrence?

I was very impressed with the results of the POTCAST study, which showed that, in patients who had an ICD and were at high risk for ventricular arrhythmias, a treatment-induced increase in plasma potassium levels led to a significantly lower risk of appropriate ICD therapy, unplanned hospitalization...

Hypokalemia plays a very important role in malignant arrhythmias. Most often, I have seen it increase the risk of torsades via prolongation of the QT interval and promotion of early afterdepolarizations. Most patients who present with this problem do not already have an ICD.

Patients with heart fail...