Ultrasonographic measurement of prenatal fetal liver.

A total of 290 measurements of the size of the fetal liver in utero were made from 19 through 42 weeks of gestation. The right hepatic lobe circumference and area, considered to be the liver size, increased linearly with the advance of gestation. A statistical analysis of these results showed a highly significant correlation between liver size and gestational age (0.87, 0.77: p less than 0.001). The liver size also closely correlated with such growth parameters as biparietal diameter, femur length, and abdominal circumference (0.86, 0.76; 0.85, 0.76; 0.85, 0.73; p less than 0.001). When the liver size of normally grown fetuses was compared with that of growth-retarded fetuses, the liver of the growth-retarded fetuses was found to be significantly smaller (p less than 0.01). We conclude from this study that the measurement of fetal liver size aids in assessing the intrauterine growth of the fetus.