Updated Etiology and Significance of Elevated Bilirubin During Pregnancy: Changes Parallel Shift in Demographics and Vaccination Status.

BACKGROUND: The most common cause of jaundice during pregnancy in the United States (US) is still attributed to viral hepatitis, despite the dramatic drop in incidence of viral hepatitis in the US. OBJECTIVE: We hypothesized that viral hepatitis is no longer a frequent etiology of jaundice among the pregnant population in the US and sought to identify the contemporary causes of elevated bilirubin during pregnancy as well as to quantify the associated risk to the mother and fetus. STUDY DESIGN: Clinical data from all pregnant women who delivered an infant between 2005 and 2011 at a single hospital in Dallas, Texas, were ascertained using prospectively collected computerized databases. Women with elevated total bilirubin (>1.2 mg/dl) were analyzed to determine the cause of hyperbilirubinemia and maternal and fetal outcomes. RESULTS: Out of a total of 80,857 consecutive deliveries, there were 397 (0.5 %) pregnancies with hyperbilirubinemia. The most common etiology was gallstones (98/397 = 25 %), followed by preeclampsia/eclampsia/HELLP (94/397 = 24 %) and intrahepatic cholestasis of pregnancy (53/397 = 13 %). Adverse infant outcomes, including stillbirths, fetal malformations, neonatal deaths, and small for gestational age births, were more common in the women with hyperbilirubinemia during pregnancy, but there were no maternal deaths. CONCLUSIONS: Acute viral hepatitis is no longer a common cause of jaundice in pregnant women in the US. In the current era, gallstones and preeclampsia-related disorders are the most common causes of jaundice in pregnant women. Disorders that cause elevated maternal bilirubin during pregnancy are associated with increased risk for the fetus.

The role of 99m Tc-RBC scintigraphy in lower gastrointestinal hemorrhage.

Given the controversy surrounding the use of 99m Tc-RBC scintigraphy (TRBCS) in lower gastrointestinal hemorrhage (LGIH), we examined how often it was performed and whether it led to specific therapy. We performed a retrospective cohort study of 565 admissions with a primary diagnosis of LGIH. We obtained detailed clinical data on all subjects, focusing in particular on outcomes after TRBCS. 199 TRBCS studies were performed during 166 patient admissions (a patient admission was defined as an incident LGIH episode in a single patient). Of the 166 patient admissions in which TRBCS was performed, the scan was positive in approximately half (84/166; 51%); if TRBCS themselves were considered, they were positive 42% (84/199) of the time. Of the 84 admissions with a positive TRBCS, angiography was performed 54 times. Among this group, angiography revealed bleeding in only 20 patients (11 patients underwent embolization and 9 had hemostatic therapy). Out of 64 patients with a positive TRBCS who underwent colonoscopy, only 3 patients underwent endoscopic hemostatic therapy. Surgery was performed in 20 patients after a positive TRBCS (including in 17/54 patients after angiogram) and hemostasis was achieved in 16. Angiography, surgery and therapeutic colonoscopy were more commonly performed after positive than after a negative TRBCS. Patients who underwent angiography within 4 h of a positive TRBCS were neither more likely to have active bleeding found nor to undergo successful embolization. Not all patients with a positive TRBCS underwent angiography, and an abnormal TRBCS did not appear to predict successful angiographic therapy; further, a positive TRBCS was not predictive of subsequent definitive therapy. Because TRBCS appears to be followed up inconsistently, the data bring into question its routine use in clinical practice, and specifically raise the possibility that it is overused in patients with LGIH.