Abstract
A 16-year-old woman was admitted to our hospital because of abdominal pain, paresis of extremities, and muscle weakness. Bartter's syndrome was suspected because of the features of the hypokalemia, hyperaldosteronism, hyperreninemia, increased concentration of plasma angiotensin Ⅰ & Ⅱ, the defect in distal fractional reabsorption of chloride and normotension. The concentrations of the plasma angiotensin Ⅱ and aldosterone, however, were decreased to normal levels after admission probably due to a decrease in the salt intake because of the regular hospital diet. Furthermore, the hyperplasia of the juxtaglomerular apparatus was not found. Therefore, at first we thought we were dealing with another disease, that is pseudo-Bartter's syndrome, which is caused by different pathogenesis Gill et al. reported that the defect in distal fractional reabsorption of chloride was a characteristic feature in the diagnosis of the Bartter's syndrome. Thus, we tried to explain the clinical symptoms and diagnosis of this case as the Baetter's syndrome according to the theory of Gill et al. If the defect of chloride reabsorption was the only pathogenesis of the Bartter's syndrome, other symptoms seen in our case could be thought of as secondary (or new) changes. Therefore, this case could be differentiated from the pseudo-Bartter's syndrome or the "true" Bartter's syndrome because of the clinical symptoms and the defect in chloride reabsorption.
