Radiation under phototherapy and its relationship to clinical effectiveness in moderately severe neonatal jaundice.

Radiation under four commercially available phototherapy units was measured over the visual spectrum and demonstrated that between 69 and 87 per cent of the radiation was irrelevant to the photodegradation of bilirubin. When infants with moderately severe physiological jaundice were exposed to three of the same phototherapy units under the same conditions there was no demonstrable difference in the apparent rate of decline of serum bilirubin or in length of treatment required.