Is that femur really short? A survey of current and best practice in fetal biometry

Abstract

A web-based survey of Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists fellows and trainees enquired about fetal femur length reporting and found: 1 Heterogeneous (including unpublished) chart choices. 2 Popular charts are not always of highest quality. 3 z-score rarely used despite World Health Authority endorsement. Potential clinical risks include false-positive and false-negative diagnosis and confusion for both patient and staff. We recommend developing high-quality charts, publishing unpublished charts and describe methods to support best practice.