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Shorter life span of fetal red blood cells, [22] being approximately 80 to 90 days in a full term infant, [24] compared to 100 to 120 days in adults. Relatively low conversion of bilirubin to urobilinogen by the intestinal flora, resulting in relatively high absorption of bilirubin back into the circulation. [22]
Jaundice, also known as icterus, is a yellowish or greenish pigmentation of the skin and sclera due to high bilirubin levels. [3] [6] Jaundice in adults is typically a sign indicating the presence of underlying diseases involving abnormal heme metabolism, liver dysfunction, or biliary-tract obstruction. [7]
Extremely high levels of unconjugated bilirubin in plasma enables bilirubin to cross the blood-brain-barrier to reach the brain and central nervous system to impart damage. This is termed kernicterus, or bilirubin encephalopathy. Kernicterus is rare in adults but is prevalent in newborns with underdeveloped blood-brain barriers and lower ...
Kernicterus is a bilirubin-induced brain dysfunction. [1] The term was coined in 1904 by Christian Georg Schmorl.Bilirubin is a naturally occurring substance in the body of humans and many other animals, but it is neurotoxic when its concentration in the blood is too high, a condition known as hyperbilirubinemia.
Hereditary hyperbilirubinemia refers to a group of conditions where levels of bilirubin, a byproduct of red blood cell metabolism, are elevated in the blood due to a genetic cause. [1] Various mutations of enzymes in the liver cells, which breakdown bilirubin, cause varying elevated levels of bilirubin in the blood. [2]
Gilbert syndrome is a phenotypic effect, mostly associated with increased blood bilirubin levels, but also sometimes characterized by mild jaundice due to increased unconjugated bilirubin, that arises from several different genotypic variants of the gene for the enzyme responsible for changing bilirubin to the conjugated form.
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Bilirubin (BR) (from the Latin for "red bile") is a red-orange compound that occurs in the normal catabolic pathway that breaks down heme in vertebrates.This catabolism is a necessary process in the body's clearance of waste products that arise from the destruction of aged or abnormal red blood cells. [3]