Potassium-depleted subjects regularly excrete dilute urine with a high free-water clearance which cannot be suppressed either by solute loading or by water deprivation. In man, as in the dog and rat, potassium depletion impairs the ability of the kidney to achieve maximal urinary solute concentration and vasopressin is unsuccessful in overcoming this defect. In man and in the dog, potassium depletion induces a rise in urinary prostaglandin E2, an effect which can be reversed with indomethacin, a cyclo-oxygenase inhibitor. To evaluate the role of prostaglandins on the renal action of vasopressin in hypokalemia, six subjects with hypokalemia of various etiologies were studied in a control, drug-free condition and again after 3 to 6 days of indomethacin (100 mg/day). Renal clearance studies to measure the maximal free-water excretion in response to an intravenous water load (10 ml/min) and to a superimposed infusion of arginine vasopressin (40 mU/hr) were performed. The results in six patients are as follows: maximal free-water clearance (control) 8.03 +/- 0.8 ml/min (mean +/- S.E.), with the addition of vasopressin, .14 +/- 0.8; after 3 to 6 days of indomethacin, 8.55 +/- 1.33; with vasopressin 0.91 +/- 1.23 ml/min. There was no statistically significant difference between the maximal free water clearance with or without indomethacin. Vasopressin exerted an equally great response in both conditions and prostaglandins did not appear to play a role in free-water formation.