Friday, 1 March 2019

Tumor lysis syndrome


Cancers are usually genetically unstable, and exist in high populations. This means that the body contains large amounts of intracellular material in a fragile cell population.

Chemotherapy causes lysis of all the exposed cancer cells which are sensitive to the therapy. The torrent of contents released from dying cancer cells into the bloodstream can cause many metabolic disturbances which are imminently life-threatening. This is known as tumor lysis syndrome (TLS). TLS can occur spontaneously, but this is a rare occurence and it is poorly understood. 

  • Hyperkalaemia (high potassium)
  • Hyperphosphatemia (high phosphate)
  • Hypocalcaemia
  • Hyperuricaemia
  • Lactic acidosis

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