If a patient presents with symptoms such as yellow staining of the skin and sclera with intense itching, loss of appetite, deepening of urine color in urine and lightening of stool color, etc., as seen in a hospital, the doctor will usually give a diagnosis – a diagnosis of obstructive jaundice, but further tests will be done to clarify whether it is surgical jaundice. From a clinical point of view, surgical jaundice must be obstructive jaundice, while obstructive jaundice is not necessarily surgical jaundice. The common surgical jaundice is mostly due to the fluid dynamics of bile caused by obstruction of the bile ducts inside and outside the liver, and the return of bile to the blood causing yellowing of the sclera (white eyes) and skin – the so-called jaundice; and what needs to be clarified is that A portion of medical jaundice, such as intrahepatic cholestasis, does not require surgical or interventional treatment and may be reduced or made to subside with medical treatment alone. In general, surgical jaundice may be found in intrahepatic occupying lesions such as hepatocellular carcinoma, intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma resulting in impaired bile drainage from the intrahepatic bile ducts. Surgical jaundice can be diagnosed if there is no distant metastasis, local vascular invasion such as hepatic artery, left or right branch of portal vein, superior mesenteric artery, abdominal aorta, inferior vena cava and abdominal artery. Supplemented with intraoperative chemotherapy, postoperative radiotherapy, immunotherapy and Chinese medicine, long-term survival can be achieved. In cases where malignancy is clearly identified, surgical treatment should be considered first. If surgical treatment is not available, interventional or endoscopic bile duct drainage can be considered to reduce jaundice so that further adjuvant treatment such as radiotherapy can prolong survival and improve quality of life. Other common causes of surgical jaundice include gallstone disease such as intra- and extrahepatic bile duct stones, congenital bile duct cysts, parasitic diseases, and stenosis following medical or traumatic bile duct injury, all of which require surgical treatment; in general, surgical treatment of benign biliary tract diseases is more effective.