PEDIATRICS Vol. 72 No. 2 August 1983, pp. 262-263
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Letter to the Editor

M. Jeffrey Maisels MD1

1 Division of Newborn Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, The Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, The Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine, Hershey, PA 17033

Thornbery has a point. Obviously we would prefer to err on the side of safety whenever using a screening technique. Having done the initial study, however, guidelines for screening could only be suggested by post facto analysis. We did provide alternatives for different transcutaneous bilirubin (TcB) indices and different serum bilirubin levels.

We also adopted a TcB index of 21 as a cutoff point for the clinical screening of infants in our "well-baby" nursery. We have now analyzed a further 184 measurements in 121 infants, none of whom received phototherapy prior to the time that the TcB index was obtained.