Who should have their bilirubin concentration measured, when and by what method?
• How can the risk of severe hyperbilirubinemia be reduced? • When should severe hyperbilirubinemia be treated? METHODS OF STATEMENT DEVELOPMENT A search was carried out in MEDLINE and the Cochrane library and was last updated in January 2007. Search terms in MEDLINE were hyperbilirubinemia and newborn, and the clinical queries filter of Haynes et al (25) was applied using the broad, sensitive option. Other searches without the filter were carried out to find publications addressing specific issues. The hierarchy of evidence from the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine was applied using levels of evidence for both treatment and prognosis (26) (Table 2). The reference lists of recent publications were also examined in particular, the evidence-based review by Ip et al (16) and a more extensive review by the same author (12) performed for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality of the US Department of Health and Human Services. The references of the recent statement of the American
