How to treat hemolytic jaundice

Clinically, there are many diseases that can cause symptoms of jaundice, such as acute hemolytic disease, chronic hemolytic disease, anemia, hepatocellular necrosis, bile duct obstruction, etc. In our daily life, the most common jaundice is hemolytic jaundice. Patients with hemolytic jaundice may experience fever, chills, headache, vomiting, back pain, yellowing of the skin, etc.

Hemolytic jaundice usually has an acute onset. When we find that our skin is yellowish and we have a poor appetite, we need to go to the hospital for a check-up to see if we may have hemolytic jaundice. Let's take a brief look at what hemolytic jaundice is.

Jaundice is a symptom and sign caused by yellowing of the skin, sclera and mucous membranes due to increased bilirubin in the serum. The highest normal bilirubin level is 17.1 μmol/L, of which conjugated bilirubin is 3.42 μmol/L and unconjugated bilirubin is 13.68 μmol/L. Hemolytic jaundice is caused by the destruction of a large number of red blood cells, forming a large amount of unconjugated bilirubin, which exceeds the liver cells' ability to absorb, bind and excrete. On the other hand, the anemia, hypoxia and toxic effects of the products of red blood cell destruction caused by hemolysis weaken the liver cells' metabolic function of bilirubin, causing unconjugated bilirubin to remain in the blood and exceed the normal level, resulting in jaundice.

First, determine whether there is jaundice. Yellowing of the skin and mucous membranes does not necessarily mean jaundice. It may be caused by the intake of large amounts of carotene in food or certain medications.

Secondly, it is necessary to clarify the type of jaundice. Jaundice can be classified into hemolytic, hepatocellular, cholestatic, and congenital non-hemolytic jaundice. Patients with hemolytic jaundice have anemia, reticulocytosis, increased unconjugated bilirubin, urobilinogen (+), urobilirubin (-), and obvious erythroid hyperplasia in the bone marrow, and the diagnosis is made based on these symptoms.

The treatment of hemolytic jaundice is first of all to treat the hemolytic disease itself: eliminate the cause, remove the inducement, and treat symptomatically (such as the use of adrenocortical hormones and plasma exchange for autoimmune hemolytic anemia, and splenectomy for patients with hereditary spherocytosis, certain types of thalassemia, and autoimmune hemolysis that is resistant to drug treatment, etc.); the second is symptomatic treatment to reduce jaundice. Commonly used drugs in clinical practice include Yinzhihuang and Simitai, but it must be emphasized that if the hemolysis is not resolved, it is difficult to reduce jaundice, and the effect is only temporary.

To sum up, we can see that there are many diseases that cause hemolytic jaundice. Therefore, when we find that we have hemolytic jaundice, we need to do corresponding examinations to understand which type of hemolytic jaundice we have. Understanding the cause and treating it accordingly will result in better treatment results.