Jaundice management may involve treating infectious causes and stopping medication that could be contributing. Among newborns, depending on age and prematurity, a bilirubin greater than 4–21 mg/dL (68-360 µmol/L) may be treated with phototherapy or exchanged transfusion. The itchiness may be helped by draining the gallbladder or ursodeoxycholic acid. The word "jaundice" is from the French "jaunisse", meaning "yellow disease". The main sign of jaundice is a yellowish discoloration of the white area of the eye and the skin. Urine is dark in colour. Slight increases in serum bilirubin are best detected by examining the sclerae, which have a particular affinity
Jaundice the intestine and it is in the intestine that bilirubin gets converted to urobilinogen by microorganisms, with the urobilinogen later being partially reabsorbed from the intestine into the general circulation, and then excreted into the urine. In this case, presence of bilirubin (conjugated) in the urine without urine-urobilinogen suggests obstructive jaundice, either intra-hepatic or post-hepatic. The presence of pale stools and dark urine suggests an obstructive or post-hepatic cause as normal feces get their color from bile pigments. They can, however, occur in many intra-hepatic illnesses and are therefore not a reliable clinical feature to distinguish obstruction from hepatic causes