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. (C) 2002 Academie des sciences / Editions scientifiques et medicales Elsevier SAS.