study of serum magnesium in surgical stress

Background: A deficiency of magnesium is of clinical importance in hospitalized patients. The prevalence of hypomagnesaemia is high in critically ill patients. Knowing the important role of magnesium in surgical cases, it is necessary to anticipate and diagnose magnesium deficiency prior to surgery and in the immediate postoperative period to correct it. Aims and Objectives: The aim of this study was to analyse serum magnesium levels in patients undergoing emergency surgical procedures, planned surgical procedures and normal healthy matched controls and to compare the serum magnesium levels in all the three groups. Materials and Methods: The study participants were divided into three groups: i) Group I: patients undergoing emergency major surgery ii) Group II: patients undergoing planned major surgery iii) Group III: normal healthy controls. Serum Magnesium investigation was done by Xylidyl Blue Method using UV-1800/Shimadzu UV-Spectrophotometer. Results: The mean serum Magnesium in control group was found to be 2.16 ± 0.30 mg/dl. In patients undergoing planned surgery, pre-operative serum magnesium was normal (2.16 ± 0.22 mg/dl) but decreased significantly on postoperative day 3 (1.63 ± 0.27 mg/dl) and day 6 (1.97 ± 0.12 mg/dl) and returned to normal level by post-operative day 9 (2.14 ± 0.14 mg/dl) compared to controls. In patients undergoing emergency surgery, serum magnesium was decreased pre-operatively (1.90 ± 0.48 mg/dl).Further significant reduction was found at post-operative day 3 (1.38 ± 0.28 mg/dl), day 6 (1.59 ± 0.30 mg/dl) and day 9 (1.88 ± 0.46 mg/dl) compared to controls. Mean serum Magnesium overall in emergency surgery patients was reduced significantly compared to planned surgery patients. Conclusion: A transient fall in the serum Magnesium as compared to its pre-operative level was seen in every patient undergoing surgical procedure due to surgical stress. In patients undergoing emergency surgical procedure, the decrease was significant and the continued post-operatively till 9 day compared to planned surgery patients.