Use of femur length as a means of assessing M-mode ventricular dimensions during second and third trimesters of pregnancy in normal fetus.

Eighty-two normal fetuses were scanned from 18 to 41 weeks of gestation. The following M-mode measurements were correlated with the femur length: end-diastolic right ventricular (r = 0.93), left ventricular (r = 0.92), biventricular outer (r = 0.94), and biventricular inner (r = 0.94) dimensions; tricuspid (r = 0.93) and mitral (r = 0.92) valve opening excursion; right (r = 0.76) and left (r = 0.70) ventricular wall thickness; and interventricular septal thickness (r = 0.75). Polynomial regression demonstrated that linear regression best described the data from which the mean and 5% and 95% confidence limits for predicted M-mode measurements were computed for the femur length.