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 for bilirubin due to their high elastin content. The presence of scleral icterus indicates a serum bilirubin of at least 3 mg/dL. The conjunctiva of the eye are one of the first tissues to change color as bilirubin levels rise in jaundice. This is sometimes referred to as "scleral icterus". The sclera themselves are not "icteric" (stained with bile pigment), however, but rather the conjunctival membranes that overlie them. The yellowing of the "white of the eye" is thus more properly termed "conjunctival icterus". The term "icterus" itself is sometimes incorrectly used to refer to jaundice that is noted in