Normal liver, spleen, and kidney dimensions in neonates, infants, and children: evaluation with sonography.

Abstract

OBJECTIVE. The objectiveof this studywas to determinethe normal rangeof dimen sions for the liver, spleen, and kidney in healthy neonates, infants, and children.SUBJECTS AND METHODS. This prospectivestudyinvolved307 pediatricsubjects (169 girls and 138 boys) with normal physicalor sonographicfindingswho were examined becauseof problems unrelated to the measuredorgans. The subjects were 5 days to 16 years old. All measured organs were sonographically normal. At least two dimensions were ob tamed for each liver, spleen, and kidney. Relationships of the dimensions of these organs with sex, age, body weight, height, and body surface area were investigated. Suggested limits of normal dimensions were defined.RESULTS. Dimensionsof the measuredorganswere notstatisticallydifferentin boysand girls. Longitudinaldimensionsof all threeorgansshowedthe bestcorrelationwith age,body weight, height, and body surface area. Height showed the strongest correlation of all. This correlationwasa polynomialcorrelation.CONCLUSION. Determinationof pathologicchangesin sizeof the liver,spleen,andkid ney necessitates knowing the normal range of dimensions for these organs in healthy neonates, infants, and children. Presented data are applicable in daily routine sonography. Body height should be considered the best criteria to correlate with longitudinal dimensions of these organs. Sonography provides a quick as sessment of visceral organ di mensions without any risk of radiation. The normal range of visceral organ sizes in adults and children determined with sonography has been reported elsewhere [ Iâ€"¿ 13]. However, available data are limited for the liver and the spleen in children, which causes difficulty in defining hepatomegaly and splenomegaly sonographically. Our purposewas primarily to document the normal range of dimensions of the liver in children. The relationship of each dimen sion with sex,age, body weight, height,and body surface area was determined. A similar evaluation was done for the spleen and the kidney at the same time.We prospectively examined 307 pediatric sub jects ( 169 girls and 138 boys) with sonography. The rangeof agewasfrom full-termnewborns (5 days) to 16 years. Patients who did not have normal growth curves (who were not in the third to 97th percentiles)were not includedin the study.Another major criterion for selection of children was having no clinically or sonographically pathologic findings related to the studied organs. Most children were completely healthy. although some were undergo ing follow-up for a disease unrelated to the mea sured organs, such as hip dysplasiaor undescended testes. No child had a history of oncologic, hemato logic, or traumatic conditions. Some children with urinarytract infectionwereincludedin the study, butonly liverandspleendimensions wererecorded inthose patients. Wealsodidnotrecord dimensions of a number of spleens for which abdominal gas distentionpreventedreliablesize measurements.All measured organshada normalpositionandshape and normalecho texture.We used high-resolutio...

Sonographic Determination of Normal Spleen Size in Turkish Adults

“…During the growth duration from infancy to adolescence, development of visseral organs like spleen demonstrated correlation with increases in height, weight and body surface area. Additionally, it was estimated that splenic length measured by ultrasonography provided an objective and safe method to evaluate spleen size (Hosey et al;Megremis et al;Konus et al, 1998).…”

Correlation between clinical evaluation of liver size versus ultrasonography evaluation according to body mass index (BMI) and biotypes

“…Mean value for men was 14.5 ± 1.6 cm and 13.5 ± 1.7 cm for women. in a study of 307 children aged between 5 days and 16 years, Konus and colleagues 16 , however, found no significant size difference in hepatic lobes.…”

“…niederau and colleagues 15 observed that body weight as well as body mass index influence liver size. Konus and colleagues 16 found a correlation coefficient of 0.80 between child's weight and liver size. they found that height is the best parameter for the correlation with longitudinal liver size in the midclavicular line in children (r = 0.85), and concluded that the greater the child's height, the greater the longitudinal extent of the liver.…”

Validação do escore ultra-sonográfico de Williams para o diagnóstico da hepatopatia da fibrose cística

“…The longitudinal axis of the spleen was measure at the level of the medial axillary line and the anterior-posterior along the left flank. Reference values for liver and spleen measurements for the different age groups were taken from a study by Konus et al 10 The database was developed and analyzed on Epi-Info version 6.0 public-domain software.…”