Comment on Sonographic Portal Vein Biometry in Apparently Healthy Children in Northeastern Nigeria.

Dear Editors,

I read the interesting study by Luntsi et al.[1] published in January–March 2020 issue of the Journal of Medical Ultrasound. On employing sonography, the authors studied the mean portal vein diameter (PVD) based on age, gender, and anthropometric indices among a cohort of apparently healthy Nigerian children aged 0–18 years. They found that the mean PVD to be 6.85 ± 1.18 mm and PVD positively correlated with some anthropometric variables.[1] In addition to the few study limitations stated by the authors, I assume that the following limitation could be relevant. It is explicit that apart from age, gender, and body indices, ethnicity is an important determinant in controlling the dimensions of various body structures.[23] Hence, various ethnicity-specific songraphic normative data of different organ dimensions have been generated to be utilized in researches institutions and clinical settings.[45] Nigeria is well known to be a multiethnic country. Regrettably, Luntsi et al.[1] did not address the ethnic standards of the studied population. I, therefore, assume that such methodological limitation could further bring into question the accuracy of the study findings.

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