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...

prevention of extreme neonatal hyperbilirubinemia in a mature health maintenance organization. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2000;154:1140-7. 11. Manning DJ, Maxwell MJ, Todd PJ, Platt MJ. Prospective surveillance study of severe hyperbilirubinaemia in the newborn in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Arch Dis Child Fetal Neonatal Ed. 2006; [Epub ahead of print]. http://fn.bmj.com/cgi/rapidpdf/adc.200...

Neonatal jaundice [2] is the yellow discoloration of the skin and eyes due to elevated bilirubin levels in the bloodstream of a newborn. Bilirubin is a byproduct of the breakdown of red blood cells. Jaundiced infants are unable to process bilirubin at a normal rate or they have an abnormally high amount of bilirubin in their bloodstream, resulting in a buildup of the yellow colored bilirubin. T...

Bilirubin-induced neurologic dysfunction (BIND) and kernicterus has been used to describe moderate to severe neurologic dysfunction observed in children exposed to excessive levels of total serum bilirubin (TSB) during the neonatal period. Here we use a new mouse model that targets deletion of the Ugt1 locus and the Ugt1a1 gene in liver to promote hyperbilirubinemia-induced seizures and central...