Neonates
Intensive phototherapy at saturation dose is used as a first-line clinical treatment which decreases the amount of accumulated unconjugated bilirubin in the infants serum by the addition of oxygen, thus allowing it to dissolve in water so the liver can more easily convert it into products which can be excreted without further metabolism. For infants with hemolytic jaundice, severe and prolonged cases of hyperbilirubinemia, or high serum bilirubin that does not decrease after phototherapy, blood exchange transfusion is carried out at the umbilical venous catheter to mechanically remove bilirubin. In cases of immune hemolytic jaundice, intravenous immunoglobulin therapy may be used to treat the condition. Administration of intravenous immunoglobulin can block monocyte Fc-receptors, preventing or reducing further hemolysis. Adults
In adults, hemolytic jaundice is uncommon, and medical treatment methods should be determined by recognizing the underlying causes of hemolysis in the patient. Complications
In cases where patients receive poor or no treatment of jaundice, neurodevelopmental complications may follow the condition, eventually leading to hearing loss, visual impairment, and in severe cases, mortality. Hyperbilirubinemia
Hyperbilirubinemia may be observed when hemolysis produces too much bilirubin through the excessive breakdown of red blood cells, and the bilirubin builds up in the patients blood and tissue fluids without proper excretion. Untreated or inadequately treated hyperbilirubinemia will lead to other complications such as kernicterus. Kernicterus
Chronic bilirubin encephalopathy, also known as kernicterus, is a brain-damaging complication associated with both preterm and full term infants with jaundice, where the large amounts of unconjugated bilirubin in the infants become neurotoxic.
This disease is marked by increased extravascular hemolysis, with laboratory findings including increased lactate dehydrogenase and decreased or absent haptoglobin in both warm and cold AIHA, and positive Coombs test. Clinically, jaundice or dark urine present in approximately one-third of the cases, and most of the symptoms are related to anemia.Other less commonly observed causes of hemolysis include:

Hemolysis secondary to drug toxicity
Thalassemia minor
Congenital dyserythropoietic anemiaThe above list is not exhaustive, and rare causes of hemolysis such as Bartonella infection, hemolysis due to transfusion reactions, and microangiopathic hemolytic anemia should be suspected when symptoms specific to those causes manifest. Pathophysiology
Bilirubin overproduction
The mechanisms by which bilirubin is overproduced in hemolytic jaundice can be understood in relation to the two major sites of hemolysis: intravascular and extravascular.During intravascular hemolysis, red blood cells are broken down within the vasculature, allowing hemoglobin from the ruptured red blood cells to form haptoglobin-hemoglobin complexes with haptoglobin, which will be internalized and degraded by hepatocytes and the spleen. If the degree of hemolysis is abnormally high, the unbound hemoglobin is converted to methemoglobin from which the heme moiety is bound to hemopexin or to albumin, and both heme-hemopexin and heme-bound albumin are internalized by hepatocytes and subsequently degraded to bilirubin. During extravascular hemolysis, red blood cells are destroyed by phagocytosis by macrophages in the reticuloendothelial system and digested by phagosomes.