An evaluation of two methods for measuring fetal head and body circumferences

Head and abdominal circumference measurements of 166 fetuses (15-40 weeks) were made by three different examiners using two measurement techniques. In method 1 the actual circumferences were measured using an electronic digitizer, while in method 2 the circumference measurements were estimated using the formula for calculating the circumference for an ellipse. Evaluation of the entire data set as a whole demonstrated no significant mean errors (P > 0.05), and only a small degree of variability (2 SD = 6 per cent). Evaluation of the data for each examiner demonstrated no significant differences (P > 0.05) in the observed variability, but small statistically significant mean errors (1.7-4.1 per cent) were observed. The latter finding is thought not to be a limitation of the ellipse approximation technique, since similar findings have been observed when experienced sonographers make actual circumference measurements on the same fetus using the same equipment.