Measurement of Fetal Femur Length in Southern Nile Tribes Ladies Using Ultrasound

Abstract

This study has been conducted on 60 pregnant ladies from different southern Nile tribes which included (Denka, Niwair and Sholok). These patients were scanned for estimation of fetal age in their second and third trimesters at different gestational ages using femur length (FL) parameter with respect to the reliable last menstrual period (LMP). Their ages were ranging from 15 to 35 years old. The study is conducted in different hospitals and ultrasound clinics, mainly Hijlij hospital in Elwihda state in the South of Sudan and Bashair hospital in Mayo area in the south of Khartoum. All the examinations were conducted by different ultrasound machines include: Toshiba (with 3.5 MHz Convex probe), Aloka SSD 500 (with 3.5 MHz convex probe), Fukuda 4100, Siemens G20 and Madison. The data was collected by special designed data collecting system for target population. All the ladies were from Nile tribes which divided as below (Denka were 22 ladies, Niwair were 20 ladies, and Sholok were 18 ladies). Their estimated fetal femoral length was compared with different international standard methods include (Jeanty method, Campbell and Osaka University methods) and reliable last menstrual period (LMP) for the ladies. Using SPSS paired T-test to test different in means between the menstrual age and the estimated gestational age using Campbell method the result showed that there was no significant difference in means between the estimated age and the clinical one at p = 0.05 with t = 1.39 and p = 0.17. There is significant difference in means between the menstrual age and the estimated one, using Jeanty and Osaka methods at p = 0.05 with t = 2.3, 12.47 and p = 0.04 and 0.01 respectively. The study revealed that the fetal femoral length in southern Nile-tribes pregnant ladies is slightly longer than the international methods. So the researcher established new formula to be used for southern Nile tribes. The formula is: Expected gestational age = 0.441 * FL + 4. 563.