Dr. Smith's ECG Blog

Instructive ECGs in Emergency Medicine Clinical Content

Associate Editors:
— Pendell Meyers & Ken Grauer (2018)
— Jesse McLaren & Emre Aslanger (2022)
— Willy Frick (2024) — Sam Ghali (2025)

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What Does this ECG tell us about the Electrolytes?

See description and answer below

Hint: this is a dialysis patient

1. There are peaked T-waves

2. There is a long ST segment, resulting in a long QTc (490 ms).  See the ST segments in inferior and lateral leads especially.

Diagnosis: hyperkalemia (6.0 mEq/L) + hypocalcemia (causing long ST segment)  (ionized Ca = 3.41 mEq/L)

Here is the patient’s ECG when the K = 4.1 and the Calcium is also low:

ST segments and QT are long (hypocalcemia), but the T-waves are not peaked.
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