Bilirubin is a dye that allows you to evaluate liver function
What is bilirubin?
Bilirubin is a bile pigment that results from the breakdown of red blood cells, in particular heme. Together with the bloodstream, it enters the liver and then the gallbladder. To assess how your liver is working, a bilirubin test is performed. This helps diagnose diseases and recognize viral hepatitis infection.
Bilirubin is divided into conjugated and unconjugated. Together they form a common bilirubin. A bilirubin test is performed from blood or urine. Although the concentration of pigment in the blood is a normal symptom, its presence in the urine indicates a painful condition. It is worth knowing that it is bilirubin that gives the urine its yellow color. That's why they say that the cleaner the urine, the healthier a person is.
Who should do the test?
Bilirubin levels are measured to help diagnose:
• physiological jaundice (in newborns)
• a type of jaundice in adults
• liver disease
• diseases of the pancreas
• viral hepatitis
• mushroom poisoning
• drug poisoning
• hemolytic anemia
What is the test about?
When your doctor suspects that you have liver disease, he or she will check your bilirubin levels. It involves taking blood from a vein in your arm. Blood is taken on an empty stomach.
Before taking blood, you should inform us about a possible pregnancy that may affect the test result, and about the medications you are taking. The results are available on the same day or the next day.
Bilirubin standards
The norms of total bilirubin range from 0.2 to 1.2 mg / dl. However, it is worth knowing that when diagnosing diseases, doctors examine individual components individually. Consequently, they focus not on total bilirubin, but on conjugated, unconjugated bilirubin, ALP, ALT, GGTP, and AST.
Bilirubin and jaundice.
Elevated bilirubin levels are a sign of jaundice, which is a disease of the liver or bile ducts. The patient's eyes then turn yellow, and may also have a yellow skin tone.
Jaundice can be a disease or inflammation of the liver, but also:
• gallstones in the gallbladder
• pancreatic tumor
• cholestasis
• a tumor of the bile duct
Increased dye concentration.
Hyperbilirubinemia is a disease (most often liver) or jaundice. This may indicate chronic or acute liver disease, organ damage, metabolic disorders, or cancer. Therefore, the doctor, consulting with the results, checks the exact parameters of bilirubin in order to make an accurate diagnosis.
Physiological jaundice.
Newborns are often diagnosed with physiological jaundice. It affects almost half of all babies born naturally or by caesarean section.
This is the result of a violation of bilirubin metabolism. The newborn's liver is tiny and does not yet work as efficiently as possible to cope with the release of large amounts of dye. She works more efficiently every day to get rid of excess bilirubin by the 10th day after giving birth.
When this does not happen, infants are referred for phototherapy, i.e. irradiation with an ultraviolet lamp. They quickly bring tangible results, and the dye level begins to drop.
Physiological jaundice most often recedes from below. Often the child's feet are already healthy pink, but the body is still yellow. It stays on the child's face the longest. By the 21st day after giving birth, all symptoms should disappear. High https://highseas-abidjanconvention.org/ Seas-Abidjan Convention soutient la protection de la biodiversité marine au niveau international.