Abstract

Background Phototherapy is an effective and safe management for neonatal hyperbilirubinemia that decreases the need for exchange transfusion. Its efficacy depends mainly on the light irradiance and wavelength as well as the distance between the phototherapy lamp and the patient.Aim To determine the efficacy of phototherapy in lowering total serum bilirubin level inneonates managed in neonate care unit in Azadi General Hospital in Duhok and to find out any significant effect on this efficacy by each of maturity, age, weight, cause of hyperbilirubinemia and initial total serum bilirubin level.Patients and Methods The study included 102 neonates with hyperbilirubinemia managed by phototherapy. Total serum bilirubin was measured for all patients at the beginning of phototherapy and 4 hours after that. The patients were divided into different groups according to their maturity, weight, age, initial total serum bilirubin and the cause of hyperbilirubinemia(hemolytic or non hemolytic). The mean rate of total serum bilirubin lowering in 4 hours was found for all the patients and also for each group separately. The results were statisticallyanalyzed using t-test and Pearson correlation.Results The mean rate of total serum bilirubin lowering was found to be 0.97 mg/dl/4 hours and percentage of lowering was 6.4% of the initial total serum bilirubin in 4 hours. This result is close to the results found in other studies in different parts of the world. The mean rate of total serum bilirubin lowering was found to be higher in preterms than in full terms (0.82 mg/dl/ 4 hours versus 0.64 mg/dl/4 hours) but no significant difference was found(P=0.71).The mean rate of total serum bilirubin lowering was higher in hemolytic than the non hemolytic cases of hyperbilirubinemia (0.95mg/dl/4hours versus 0.74mg/dl/4hours) but no significant difference was found (P=0.97). The mean rate of total serum bilirubin lowering was found to be increasing with increasing age but no significant correlation was found (P=0.61), r =0.05. Also there was no significant correlation of mean total serum bilirubinlowering and body weight (P=0.66), r =0.044 and with initial total serum bilirubin level (P=0.74), r =0.033.Conclusion The efficacy of phototherapy in our neonate care unit is close to its efficacy elsewhere and this efficacy is not affected significantly by age, maturity, weight, initial totalserum bilirubin and the cause of hyperbilirubinemia.

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The article was added to IASJ on 2019-05-08

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