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Updated: Mar 15, 2026
Assessment of Child Anthropometry in a Large Epidemiologic Study
Published on: February 2, 2017
Impact of replacing Chinese ethnicity-specific fetal biometry charts with the INTERGROWTH-21(st) standard
Yky Cheng1, T Y Leung1, Tth Lao1
1Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Prince of Wales Hospital, Shatin, Hong Kong SAR, China.
Objective:
To assess the impact of adopting the INTERGROWTH-21(st) biometry standards in a Chinese population.
Design:
Retrospective cohort study.
Setting:
A teaching hospital in Hong Kong.
Population:
A total of 10 527 Chinese women with a singleton pregnancy having a second- or third-trimester fetal anomaly or growth scan between January 2009 and June 2014.
Methods:
Z-scores were derived for fetal abdominal circumference (AC), head circumference (HC), and femur length (FL) using the INTERGROWTH-21(st) and Chinese biometry standards. Pregnancies with aneuploidy, structural or skeletal abnormalities, or that developed pre-eclampsia were excluded. Z-scores were stratified as <2.5th, <5th, <10th, >90th, >95th, or >97.5th percentile. Birthweight centile, adjusted for gestation and gender, was categorised as ≤3rd, 3rd to ≤5th, 5th to ≤10th, and >10th. Pairwise comparison and the McNemar test were performed to assess biometry Z-score differences and concordance between the INTERGROWTH-21(st) and Chinese standards.
Main Outcome Measures:
The sensitivity of both the local and INTERGROWTH-21(st) AC standards to identify pregnancies that were small-for-gestational-age (SGA) was assessed.
Results:
INTERGROWTH-21(st) AC, HC, and FL Z-scores were significantly lower than those obtained using our local reference for AC, HC, and FL (P < 0.0001 for all). The proportion of fetuses with biometry in the <2.5th, <5th, <10th, >90th, >95th, or >97.5th percentiles was statistically significant (P < 0.01 for all). A total of 1224 (15.5%) of the scans at 18-22 weeks of gestation had AC, HC, or FL below the 3rd percentile of the INTERGROWTH-21(st) standard.
Conclusions:
Adopting the INTERGROWTH-21(st) standard would lead to a significant number of fetuses being at risk of misdiagnosis for small fetal size, particularly when using HC and FL measures.
Tweetable Abstract:
INTERGROWTH-21(st) biometry assessment in Chinese leads to fetuses being at risk of misdiagnosis of small fetal size.
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