Jaundice

All looks yellow to a jaundiced eye - Alexander Pope

Jaundice

image by: Mark Smith

HWN Recommends

Medical mystery: Common symptom, uncommon cause

As I went through my patient notes one night in the ER, I thought about how strangely quiet the last few hours had been. Just then, I heard the doors slam as the police rushed in with a man in his late 20s. He was delusional and psychotic.

His mother arrived and told me that she had to call 911 when her son started waving a knife, threatening to kill her. She said that he had stopped bathing in recent days, and then she noticed that he was extremely paranoid. He had hardly any appetite - and, she recalled, the whites of his eyes had looked yellow for the last few weeks.

His behavior reminded her of how he acted the previous year, when he was diagnosed with schizophrenia.…

read full article

Resources

Learn about jaundice

Commonly characterised as a condition that causes discolouration of eyes and skin, jaundice has various manifesting factors. An expert lists them all.

This is the diet you must follow to quickly recover from Jaundice

Jaundice can happen to anyone, although it is very common in new born babies but adults are also not spared. There are several causes of jaundice.

5 simple tips to prevent jaundice

It is not always possible to prevent jaundice (as it is caused due to wide range of potential causes), but following few precautionary measures can minimise the risk...

Is Jaundice Contagious?

Although jaundice is treatable and if treated at an earlier stage does not cause many issues but many want to know: is jaundice contagious?

Jaundice in newborns could be an evolutionary safeguard against death from sepsis

In newborn babies, jaundice is so common as to be termed physiological. It affects around 60% of term babies and around 80% of preterm babies in the first week of their lives. Clinicians need to monitor it carefully and sometimes treat it, since it can lead to conditions like acute bilirubin encephalopathy and kernicterus that can damage the infant’s brain and cause developmental problems. But it now looks as though this jaundice is not merely one of the pitfalls of entering the world. New research just published in Scientific Reports, in which we have been involved, suggests that it is one of the gifts of evolution. Humans may develop jaundice as newborns to protect from something even more serious: sepsis.

Jaundice in the Adult Patient

Jaundice in an adult patient can be caused by a wide variety of benign or life-threatening disorders. Organizing the differential diagnosis by prehepatic, intrahepatic, and posthepatic causes may help make the work-up more manageable.

Medical mystery: Common symptom, uncommon cause

The next day, he appeared calm and oriented, talking to his mother sitting by his bedside. His mood and behavior had remarkably improved. But his skin looked yellow.

ScienceDirect

Jaundice (icterus) is the accumulation of, and colouring of the skin and mucous membranes by, bilirubin, if it appears in excessive amounts or is not conjugated or excreted.

eMedicineHealth

Jaundice may be caused by several different disease processes. It is helpful to understand the different causes of jaundice by identifying the problems that disrupt the normal bilirubin metabolism and/or excretion.

NHS

The most common signs of jaundice are: •yellowing of the skin, eyes and the lining of the inside of parts of the body, such as the mouth and nose (mucus membrane) •pale-coloured stools •dark-coloured urine

Patient

Jaundice results from interference in the normal metabolism of bilirubin (including uptake, transport, conjugation and excretion). This may result from: •Pre-hepatic causes (unconjugated hyperbilirubinaemia), eg haemolytic anaemia. •Hepatocellular disease. •Cholestasis: intrahepatic or extrahepatic cholestasis.