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Updated: Oct 28, 2026
High Frequency Ultrasound for the Analysis of Fetal and Placental Development In Vivo
Published on: November 8, 2018
Second-trimester measurements of placental volume by three-dimensional ultrasound to predict
E Hafner1, T Philipp, K Schuchter
1Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Clinical Gynecology and Obstetrics, Danube Hospital, SMZO, Vienna, Austria.
Objective:
The objective of this study was to investigate the value of second-trimester three-dimensional sonographic placental volume measurements to predict infants who are below the 10th centile for birth weight.
Subjects And Methods:
Placental volume measurements were performed using three-dimensional ultrasound in 382 women with normal singleton pregnancies at 16-23 weeks' gestation. Logistic multivariate regression consisting of variables considered to influence birth weight was used to predict infants with a birth weight below the 10th centile from the placental volume measurements.
Results:
Prognostic influence could be shown for placental volume (p < or = 0.0001), gestational week at the time of measurement (p = 0.0002) and maternal weight at the time of registration (p = 0.0025). Values for specificity and sensitivity achieved by choosing an 'optimal' cut-off point of 0.16 for the estimation probability for a small-for-gestational-age (SGA) infant were low at 82.5% and 52.5%, respectively.
Conclusions:
Three-dimensional sonographic measurement of the placental volume alone is not a satisfactory technique for predicting SGA infants.
