Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Comparative Study
. 2004 Jun;92(1-2):13-7.
doi: 10.1007/s00421-004-1074-9. Epub 2004 Mar 11.

A unified formula for calculating body surface area of humans and animals

Jianfeng Wang  1 , Eiji Hihara
Affiliations
Comparative Study

A unified formula for calculating body surface area of humans and animals

Jianfeng Wang et al. Eur J Appl Physiol. 2004 Jun.

Abstract

We previously derived a formula for calculating human body surface area (BSA) from V (body volume) and L (reference body length): BSA=(9 pi VL)(0.5). In this paper, we analyse first the effects of body density variation on BSA during growth and the scaling relation of BSA to body mass. Then we utilise the derived formula to calculate BSA of animals and compare the obtained data with the direct measurements on the same animals, including rat, chicken, dog, and cattle, from the literature. It is shown that two problems remain to be solved for applying the derived formula to all mammals and other animals: one is to find out the L for each species of animal by means of direct measurements, and the other is to obtain the variation of body density during growth.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. J Vet Intern Med. 1998 Jul-Aug;12(4):267-71 - PubMed
    1. Lab Anim Sci. 1977 Aug;27(4):474-6 - PubMed
    1. Growth. 1981 Winter;45(4):322-8 - PubMed
    1. J Exp Biol. 1988 Jul;137:157-73 - PubMed
    1. J Appl Physiol. 1976 Jan;40(1):101-4 - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources