Bilirubin is a primary product of heme catabolism and exhibits both neuroprotective and neurotoxic effects. When present at physiologic concentrations, bilirubin is a potent antioxidant and serves to protect brain tissue from oxidative stress insults. The use of the anesthetic propofol attenuates ischemic injury in rats by exploiting these neuroprotective properties. At pathologic levels, bilir...

UNLABELLED The role of antivirals in patients with acute viral hepatitis B (AVH-B) has not been evaluated in controlled trials. The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of lamivudine in patients with AVH-B. AVH-B patients with serum bilirubin of more than 5 mg/dL were randomized to receive either 100 mg of lamivudine daily for 3 months (group 1, n = 31) or placebo (group 2, n = 40). P...

INTRODUCTION Acute liver failure (ALF) is a multisystem disease with severe impairment of liver function of acute onset. The Paediatric End-stage Liver Disease (PELD) score is used as a predictor of mortality in chronic liver disease, however experience is limited in ALF. OBJECTIVES To evaluate the aetiology and outcomes of children with ALF in a Children's Liver Transplant Centre, and to inv...

Despite efforts to eliminate permanent and irreversible brain damage due to bilirubin encephalopathy and kernicterus, these conditions continue to accompany us into the third millennium. This phenomenon occurs not only in developing countries with emerging medical systems, but in Westernized countries as well. Comprehensive guidelines to detect newborns with jaundice and treat those in whom hyp...

Despite efforts to eliminate permanent and irreversible brain damage due to bilirubin encephalopathy and kernicterus, these conditions continue to accompany us into the third millennium. This phenomenon occurs not only in developing countries with emerging medical systems, but in Westernized countries as well. Comprehensive guidelines to detect newborns with jaundice and treat those in whom hyp...

OBJECTIVES To determine the incidence of severe hyperbilirubinaemia in the newborn, and to identify associated clinical and demographic variables, and short-term outcomes. DESIGN Prospective, population-based study. SETTING UK and Republic of Ireland, between 1 May 2003 and 31 May 2005. PARTICIPANTS Infants in the first month of life with severe hyperbilirubinaemia (maximum unconjugated s...

BACKGROUND Jaundice is the commonest neonatal ailment requiring treatment. Untreated, it can lead to acute bilirubin encephalopathy (ABE), chronic bilirubin encephalopathy (CBE) or death. ABE and CBE have been largely eliminated in industrialised countries, but remain a problem of largely undocumented scale in low resource settings. As part of a quality-improvement intervention in the Neonatal ...

Despite efforts to eliminate permanent and irreversible brain damage due to bilirubin encephalopathy and kernicterus, these conditions continue to accompany us into the third millennium. This phenomenon occurs not only in developing countries with emerging medical systems, but in Westernized countries as well. Comprehensive guidelines to detect newborns with jaundice and treat those in whom hyp...

Background Acute Bilirubin Encephalopathy in the neonatal period is a major cause of permanent disability. Effective screening and surveillance are essential in the newborn period to enable timely management. Noninvasive transcutaneous bilirubin devices have been successfully used for screening in many settings. We evaluated the accuracy of the Draeger JM 103 (Medical Systems, USA) for estimati...

Ifosfamide is one of the most important chemotherapeutic agents used for the treatment of numerous types of malignancies. Neurotoxicity is one of its life-threatening complications and is potentially fatal. In this paper we present a case of severe ifosfamide- induced encephalopathy in an adolescent with acute lymphoblastic leukemia in whom treatment with methylene blue led to complete improvem...