Surveillance in longitudinal models: detection of intrauterine growth restriction

A new methodology for online detection of intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) is proposed where traditional methods for statistical surveillance are applied. Here, deficient growth rate is used to detect IUGR instead of the common surrogate measure "small for gestational age" (SGA). Fetal growth is estimated by repeated measurements of symphysis-fundus (SF) height. At each time point the new method, based on the Shiryaev-Roberts method, is used to evaluate the growth in SF height. We use Swedish data to model a normal growth pattern, which is used to evaluate the capability of the new method to detect IUGR in comparison with a method used in practice today. Results from simulations indicate that the new method performs considerably better than the method used today. We also illustrate the effect of some important factors which influence the detection ability and illuminate the tendency of the method used today to misclassify SGA cases as IUGR.