PLACENTAL THICKNESS AND ITS CORRELATION TO GESTATIONAL AGE ESTIMATED BY FOETAL GROWTH PARAMETERS-A CROSS SECTIONAL ULTRASONOGRAPHIC STUDY

The placenta is a meterno-fetal organ and starts developing on the 5th week from chorionic villi at the implantation site. The placenta continues to increase in thickness and hence its thickness can be used to indicate the gestational age when the last menstruation date is not confirmed. The purpose of the study was to find out the correlation of placental thickness to the gestational age estimated by growth parameters of the fetus. The study was a cross-sectional analytical study conducted on 2000 participants. The study was conducted in the Department of Radiology Social Security Hospital, Multan Chungi Lahore. The inclusion-exclusion criteria were established and participants were observed using a Toshiba ultrasonography machine. The subjects were placed supine and placental thickness was measured to the accuracy of 1mm. Pearson’s correlation was applied to find out the correlation between placental thickness and gestational age of the participants. The mean age of the participants was 28.37  +  4.6. The youngest participant was age 18 and the eldest participant was age 40. The gestational age of the participants included ranged between 12th week to 40th week. Pearson’s correlation score indicated that the correlation value 0.896. Which indicated that the placental thickness and gestational age were strongly correlated? The P-value < 0.05 indicated that the results were significant. The study concluded a strong correlation between gestational age and placental thickness of the fetus. The thickness of the placenta increased with an increase in gestational age and hence could be used as a predictor and a parameter of gestational age prediction when the last menstruation is uncertain or is unknown.