Causes and characteristics of 500 consecutive cases of jaundice.

During approximately 2 years 106 clinical and routine laboratory parameters were obtained from each of 500 jaundiced patients consecutively admitted to the surgical and medical departments in a hospital covering a third of the hospital admissions in the city of Copenhagen. The patients were classified mainly by morphological criteria (397 patients) or the subsequent clinical course (103 patients) into five major diagnostic categories: acute parenchymal jaundice (113 patients), chronic parenchymal jaundice (97 patients), gallstone disease (76 patients), malignant obstructive jaundice (104 patients), and other causes of jaundice (110 patients). The five major categories covered 23 specific diagnoses. Within 3 months of admission 21% of the patients died, and the mortality varied from 4% in acute parenchymal jaundice to 49% in jaundice due to malignant disease.