Rhabdomyolysis is “A possibly fatal condition in which skeletal muscle breaks down due to injury such as physical damage to the muscle, high fever, metabolic disorders, excessive exertion, convulsions or anoxia of the muscle for several hours, large amounts of myoglobin are usually excreted.”(Huether & McCance, 2012, p. 1097) In acute renal failure myoglobin precipitates in the tubules obstructing the flow through the nephrons and causing injury. Damage to the myocyte causes an influx of sodium into the cell and cytosolic calcium accumulation due to direct injury to the cell. The high calcium concentration has a number of dangerous effects including the activation of phospholipase A2 which results in toxic metabolites and cell death. Large
