Two clinical trials were designed to test the effect of albumin administration before phototherapy for non-haemolytic neonatal jaundice. The first with 18 hours of phototherapy showed that the albumin-treated group (23 infants) had higher and more prolonged jaundice than the group (27 infants) given phototherapy alone.
In the second study on 29 infants there were two groups as before, but the duration of phototherapy was increased to at least 48 hours and a third untreated group was included. These results showed significant differences between all three groups, the cases receiving phototherapy alone having the shortest and those receiving no specific therapy, the longest duration of jaundice.
Those patients given albumin intravenously had significantly greater albumin-binding capacity at the end of treatment.