A Case of Spurious Hypoxemia in an ICU Patient With Leukemic Blast Crisis

Abstract

Arterial blood gas analysis is one of the most common tests performed on patients in the intensive care unit (ICU) to diagnose hypoxemia, a condition with low oxygen tension in the blood (PaO₂). Hypoxemia can be true or spurious/pseudo. One of the causes of spurious hypoxemia is the presence of metabolically active cells like white blood cells (WBCs) and platelets. We present a case of blast crisis due to acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) presenting with spurious hypoxemia which improved after leukapheresis in our ICU.




J Med Cases. 2015;6(11):491-492
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.14740/jmc2328w