Jaundice

Introduction

Jaundice is a disease in which the total serum bilirubin (TSB) level rises above 3 mg/dL. The symptoms include yellowing of your skin, the white part of your eyes, and mucous membranes (linings of internal soft organs such as mouth). Newborn babies usually have jaundice, but adults can suffer from it too. In adults, other symptoms are also seen such as stomach pain, loss of appetite, wight loss, etc. In babies, phototherapy and blood transfusion, while in adults, it includes removal of the causative factor, medications and sometimes, a surgery. If left untreated, it can affect the brain of the child, and other complications like sepsis, liver and kidney diseases or failure, etc.

Metabolism of bilirubin

Our body keeps generating new red blood cells (RBCs) and wards off the old ones. During this process, the hemoglobin which is inside the old RBCs is broken down into globin, iron, and biliverdin. Globin and iron are re-utilised in our bone marrow to produce new hemoglobin, whereas biliverdin is broken down again to leave a byproduct called bilirubin. Our liver takes up this bilirubin for its further metabolism. This processed bilirubin flows through the bile duct and enters the intestine. The intestine also splits it down into urobilinogen and stercobilinogen. Urobilinogen is absorbed back again to be released into the blood circulation, some of which re-enters our liver while the rest of it is removed by our kidneys in the urine. Stercobilinogen is excreted out through stools.

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