Alkalosis

What it means

Depletion of acid or accumulation base in the body fluids.

When describing acid-base abnormalities, acidosis and alkalosis refer to physiological processes that lower or raise the pH, respectively, while acidemia and alkalemia simply describe the state of an abnormal blood pH. This distinction is important: a patient with acidemia could have both a respiratory and metabolic acidosis as well as a concurrent metabolic alkalosis.

Rare diseases that can present with this1

The range is how often this sign appears among people diagnosed with each disease — it is not a probability of having any of them. Many of these signs also occur in common, non-rare conditions. A sign on this page is a conversation to have with a clinician, not a conclusion.

Part of the broader category