Nouvelle formule de détermination de l’âge d’un fœtus

Abstract

New foetal age determination formula. The methods utilised in anthropology for foetal age assessment are generally rather old, based on small samples and have never been tested on other samples than the one they were established on. In this study, we establish a formula on 344 foetuses of known age, and compare it with other age determination methods found in the scientific literature. Except our formula, the tested other methods do not give the limits of the prediction's confidence interval, and therefore do not take into account the total variability. Therefore, we demonstrate the necessity to establish formulas based on large samples and on a validated methodology. To cite this article: P.

Perinatal infant death at the Roman villa site at Hambleden, Buckinghamshire, England

“…The Hambleden data are clustered tightly around bone lengths which earlier work (e.g. Scheuer et al, 1980;O'Brien and Queenan, 1981;Hadlock et al, 1982;Hohler and Quetel, 1982;Chitty et al, 1994;Hill et al, 1992;Sherwood et al, 2000;Adalian et al, 2002;Olsen et al, 2002) has established correspond approximately to a full-term infant. The Hambleden data contrast with the more dispersed Wharram Percy distribution.…”

“…For foetal and perinatal infants, the correlation between long-bone lengths and age is generally high e for example for the femur, the most widely studied bone in this age class, correlation coefficients between length and age of about 0.95 or higher are routinely reported (e.g. Scheuer et al, 1980;Hadlock et al, 1982;Yeh et al, 1982;Warda et al, 1985;Ejalde and de Ejalde, 1986;Hill et al, 1992;Sherwood et al, 2000;Adalian et al, 2002). The lack of an observable age-structure mimicry effect is thus largely as expected on theoretical grounds.…”

Predictive model in the presence of missing data: the centroid criterion for variable selection

“…Indeed, in the french law the judgment and the prejudice appreciation differ in step with the fetal age. Fetal age can be determined using thigh-bone lengths [10] or foot lengths [11] as well as cranium bones measures. For the latter procedure of determination, 46 biometric covariates were measured (cranium bone lengths or angular measures [12,13]) on 50 aborted fetuses.…”

Study of femoral torsion during prenatal growth: Interpretations associated with the effects of intrauterine pressure

“…Because the intensity of the intrauterine constraints increases between 5 months and birth, this is the most appropriate period to address the question of whether the intrauterine environment affects skeletal growth. Consequently, when the precise fetal age was unknown, only femora with a shaft length measurement between 35 and 76 mm were used as this length corresponds to the period between 22 and 40 weeks of gestation (see Adalian, 2002). This is in accordance with the data based on ultrasound measurements found in the literature (Hadlock et al, 1982; Guihard‐Costa et al, 1991; Thiebeaugeorges et al, 2006).…”

“…Based on our personal observations of the sample of osteocartilaginous femora, in addition to radiographic samples where the transition between cartilage and bone is very clear, we determined that the base of the femoral neck is ossified at the age of 28 weeks of gestation. Only osteological femora with a femoral shaft length greater than or equal to 48 mm (Adalian, 2002) were thus measured, resulting in 89 femora. The osteocartilaginous femora conserved the cartilaginous epiphysis allowing us to acquire the proximal outline on the cartilaginous base of the neck on femora with a shaft length smaller than 48 mm.…”