Talk:Bilirubin encephalopathy

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Ideal sources for Wikipedia's health content are defined in the guideline Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (medicine) and are typically review articles. Here are links to possibly useful sources of information about Bilirubin encephalopathy.

PubMed provides review articles from the past five years (limit to free review articles)
The TRIP database provides clinical publications about evidence-based medicine.
Other potential sources include: Centre for Reviews and Dissemination and CDC

On 27 June 2025, it was proposed that this article be moved from Kernicterus to Bilirubin Encephalopathy. The result of the discussion was moved.

note

NB: the key to understanding scientific/medical terms is to understand the roots, because the same word roots/structures are used over and over. "Kern" is Greek for "nut" or "nucleus" (from which we get the English word "kernel") and "icterus" is Greek for jaundice. The Latin "nucleus," in turn, has three scientific applications: the nucleus of the atom; the nucleus of the cell; and the nuclei of the brain, various collections of nerve bodies which can be readily identified at autopsy, or can be seen in other tissue preparations.

Likewise "polycythemia" breaks down into the Greek "poly," "many;" "cyt," "cell;" and "hem," "blood": [too] many blood cells.

Verbatim content

Someone had taken verbatim content of kernicterus straight from eMedicine.com (see here), so I removed it. --theSpectator _talk 22:30, 20 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

So, you tell us that elevated bilirubin can cause kerniecterus, but you don't tell us what levels or duration of elevated levels of bilirubin will cause kernicterus. E.g. when do we get worried about the level???

75.194.132.136 01:52, 10 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Incorect Isomer depicted

The image presently displayed depicts the E,E isomeric form of bilirubin, which is not the much less soluble Z,Z isomeric form of bilirubin primarily responsible for kernicterus

65.207.69.2 (talk) 17:06, 17 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Blood brain barrier

This article seems to dwell too much on the so-called "immature" development of the BBB in newborns as one of the main explanations as to why kernicterus is not associated to adult incidence of the disease. I would like to point out that the BBB is fully functional in the fetus well before birth; evidence suggests no significant difference between adult and newborn permeability. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12955493 http://www.springerlink.com/content/jv3cwr6a87aqm5fp/?MUD=MP http://www.livestrong.com/article/307566-infant-development-of-the-blood-brain-barrier/ http://www.google.com/#hl=en&sclient=psy-ab&q=blood+brain+barrier+development+timeline&oq=blood+brain+barrier+development+tim&aq=0w&aqi=q-w1&aql=&gs_l=serp.3.0.33i21.16020.21978.0.23660.4.4.0.0.0.0.148.514.0j4.4.0...0.0.oFWKZ-I14Qc&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=a026b5e33ed2fa7&biw=1366&bih=639 http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v468/n7323/full/nature09513.html http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2471140 http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/v27/n9/full/nbt0909-804.html http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7452231 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7114247 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10065326 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.48.191.146 (talk) 13:12, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I fully agree with the above comment. The blood-brain barrier in the late term human fetus and newborn is not "immature". It is fully formed with patent tight junctions that restrict the movement of solutes and has all of the inward and outward transport system that are present in the adult. The explanation for increased bilirubin entry into the CNS is to do with albumin binding capacity. In some infants the metabolic pathways for processing bilirubin in the liver have not fully developed and there is an excess of bilirubin in blood. Bilirubin is lipid soluble and if it is not bound to albumin it can cross any cell membranes including the blood-brain barrier. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 14.201.34.138 (talk) 11:00, 20 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

etymology?

is it a combination of German (Kern) and something else (-us looks Latin)?

why is nothing about that name in the article?

2A02:908:F61:1640:ED5F:6F04:A7F3:151B (talk) 15:00, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Kernicterus does define as,

"Kern-" -> nucleus (German)

"-icterus" -> "ikteros" = Jaundice (Greek)

I will see if it is essential to the article, if yes I will add. DrTheHistorian 01:30, 19 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Proposing a Title change to Bilirubin Encephalopathy

Requested move 27 June 2025

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. to Bilirubin encephalopathy (non-admin closure) – MrAussieGuy (Talk) 04:57, 25 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Kernicterus → Bilirubin EncephalopathyBilirubin Encephalopathy – kernicterus is the Chronic form of Bilirubin Encephalopathy. There is also an Acute Bilirubin Encephalopathy (ABE) which takes place before the chronic phase and it is not Kernicterus. We can not have the acute phase on an article purly based on its chronic phase, but with a title change there wont be any confusions.

This way the article can be written for both phases with a lot more information, but if we keep it as Kernicterus then there needs to be another article for its Acute phase which does not make sense.

This short article explains my reasoning.

Also as per WP:COMMONNAME, results on National Library of Medicine shows Bilirubin Encephalopathy close to 30,000, and Kernicterus shows 5500. That is widely because Kernicterus is the specific type of Bilirubin Encephalopathy. DrTheHistorian✎ 23:00, 27 June 2025 (UTC) — Relisting. Jeffrey34555 (talk) 05:59, 5 July 2025 (UTC) — Relisting. TarnishedPath^talk 06:46, 12 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Bilirubin encephalopathy would be more consistent with WP:SENTENCECASE. However, oppose either change given that kernicterus is still more widely used, at least using ngram. Klbrain (talk) 18:58, 4 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The ngram tagged is only showing books and fails to count articles that are published.

The ncbi would be more appropriate for medical articles towards counting,

Bilirubin Encephalopathy ≈ 30,000

Kernicterus ≈ 5500

A wide marginal difference.

As seen on this article itself there is three Classifications. Kernicterus is simply the chronic form of Bilirubin Encephalopathy and if this article stays as "Kernicterus" then there is no room for other classifications and each should have its own article, which wont make any sense. DrTheHistorian✎ 01:02, 5 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Bilirubin encephalopathy would be more consistent with WP:SENTENCECASE per Klbrain. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 08:30, 5 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Support Bilirubin encephalopathy per sentence case and otherwise per nom. Other searches similarly show a wide margin preferring this name: Google Scholar – 124,000 hits vs. 29,600; Wiley – 14,567 vs. 2,818. Bilirubin encephalopathy is sometimes, if imprecisely, used synonymously with kernicterus and the article already contains some content on the other stages. Thus, the proposed title is accurate for the scope of the current content so I have no concerns that this is premature. --MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫—talk 21:31, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that Google Books (Ngram) is not appropriate for assessing the common name, much less the correct name, in reliable sources. See: WP:MEDTITLE. --MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫—talk 21:35, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Note: WikiProject Medicine/Hematology-oncology task force, WikiProject Medicine, and WikiProject Medicine/Neurology task force have been notified of this discussion. TarnishedPath^talk 06:46, 12 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

support Bilirubin encephalopathy per Myceteae rationale--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 00:01, 17 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose This would be changing the article's scope unnecessarily. Nominator said themselves that it's only a certain form of bilirubin encephalopathy, so why move it? This is a situation where you have to start a new article on the more general topic. This one can then be merged if necessary later, assuming it's not independently notable. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 19:48, 20 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
only a certain form of bilirubin encephalopathy, exactly. We cannot have one form of Bilirubin encephalopathy as the title of the article for all of its stages/forms. The title should be Bilirubin encephalopathy so all its forms can be written and expanded accordingly. DrTheHistorian✎ 19:53, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.