Jaundice is a disease of the liver in which the skin and the eyes become yellow. It occurs when some of the fluid produced by the liver, called bile, flows back to the bloodstream and gets deposited in the deeper layers of the skin.
Jaundice is best seen in natural daylight and may not be apparent under artificial lighting. The degree of colouration depends upon the concentration of the bile pigments in the blood, its rate of tissue diffusion and the absorption and binding of bile pigments by the tissue. The bile pigments enter the tissue fluids and are absorbed more readily where there is already inflammation and edema.
The most common cause of jaundice is the extra secretion of bile by the liver. Congenital defects which impair the removal of bile pigments may also cause jaundice. Some liver diseases may also cause malfunctioning of the liver cells which would explain the presence of extra liver cells in the blood stream. Jaundice is usually of two types: retention jaundice and regurgitation jaundice. In retention jaundice, the pigments are retained in the bloodstream because of some removal problem. In regurgitation jaundice, there is an abnormal leak back into the bloodstream after it has been removed from the blood or directly from the bile ducts.
Some of the diseases that can lead to jaundice are anaemia, congestion in the circulatory system, pneumonia, degeneration of the liver cells, scarring of the liver tissues and tumour in the liver and bile ducts. Newborn babies often have mild jaundice for a few days after birth. This is, however, generally harmless and soon disappears.