Background: most of articles addressed the underlying causes and management of Neonatal Nonhemolytic Jaundice, however only a few have investigated nonhemolytic jaundice among infancy which can turn fatal in severe case, however can be prevented by early diagnosis.
Aim of the Work: was to investigate the most common etiologies of nonhemolytic jaundice among infants presented to at King Abdulaziz University Hospital (KAUH) which may help pediatricians to rearrange their differential diagnosis about nonhemolytic jaundice in infants.
Material and Methods: this is a retrospective observational study of all infants aged between 1-12 months, conducted at King Abdulaziz University Hospital (KAUH) in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia from January 2016 to November 2017. Data collection was done using Microsoft Excel while data analysis was done using SPSS version 21. Chi -square test was used to test if associations would be appropriate.
Results: out of total 105 patients enrolled in this study, complete data set was available for 88 only patients during 2012. The mean age at presentation in months was 2.73 (± SD 2.21) range from 1 to 12 months. Among the sample, the final outcome was as follows ; 59 (67%) jaundice-free, 14 (15.9%) still diseased and 15 (17%) dead. Sepsis was the most common cause of jaundice with 33 cases (37.5%), followed by biliary atresia 10 cases (11.4%) and congenital hypertrophic pyloric stenosis 7 cases (8%). On the other hand, the least common causes were rare diseases like wolman syndrome, crigler-najjar syndrome and autoimmune hepatitis and each of them represents 1 case. The overall number of deaths in our study was 15 (17%). Seven of them were due to sepsis and 2 were due to biliary atresia.
Conclusion: we hope to help the local physicians in Jeddah to arrange their differential diagnosis of nonhemolytic jaundice among infants and deal with it seriously, due to the high incidence of critical illness and death.