Neonatal jaundice icterometer, a piece of transparent plastic painted in five transverse strips of graded yellow lines, is not recommended. This is hand held, portable and rechargeable but expensive. When pressure is applied to the photoprobe, a xenon tube generates a strobe light, and this light passes through the subcutaneous tissue. The reflected light returns through the second fiber optic bundle to the spectrophotometric module. The intensity of the yellow color in this light, after correcting for the hemoglobin, is measured and instantly displayed in arbitrary units. Any of the following features suggests pathological jaundice: The signs which help detect pathological jaundice
Jaundice may be impaired at any point between the uptake of unconjugated bilirubin into the cell and transport of conjugated bilirubin into biliary canaliculi. In addition, swelling of cells and oedema due to inflammation cause mechanical obstruction of intrahepatic biliary tree. Hence in hepatocellular jaundice, concentration of both unconjugated and conjugated bilirubin rises in the blood. In hepatocellular disease, there is usually interference in all major steps of bilirubin metabolism—uptake, conjugation and excretion. Excretion is the rate-limiting step, however, and usually impaired to the greatest extent. As a result, conjugated hyperbilirubinaemia predominates. The unconjugated bilirubin still enters the liver cells and