Benign postoperative jaundice complicating severe trauma.

Five patients are described in whom deep jaundice developed following severe trauma. Only two of the patients showed acute renal failure. All showed the adult respiratory distress syndrome. The livers at autopsy were enlarged and showed centrilobular congestion and cholestases. This syndrome, which is closely analogous, to that described as "benign postoperative jaundice", is more closely associated with the hypoxic hypoxia of acute respiratory failure than with the stagnant hypoxia of acute circulatory failure. It is accentuated by transfusion, and often by disseminated intra-vascular coagulation.