(568) Penile Length Can Be Estimated by the Foot-Length? A Study in Human Fetuses

Introduction There are no reports comparing penile length with foot-length between normal and anencephalic fetuses. Our hypothesis was that there are no differences between anencephaly and normal fetuses parameters during the human fetal period. Objective The objective of the study was to compare the penile length with foot-length in fetuses with anencephaly and without anomalies. Methods This is a morphometric study of human fetuses. We studied 32 fetuses without anomalies, aged 11-22 weeks post-conception (WPC) and 13 anencephalic fetuses, aged 13-19 WPC. We evaluated penile free portion length and width, penile root length and width and total penile length with a digital caliper and the aid of computer programs (Image Pro and Image J). The Shapiro-Wilk test was employed to ascertain the normality of the data and to compare quantitative data between normal vs. anencephalic fetuses. Simple linear correlations (LC) were calculated for penile measurements according to foot-length Results Total penile length varied from 4.69 to 29.77mm (mean =15.67) in normal fetuses and from 7.49 to 18.46mm (mean=11.48) in anencephalic fetuses without significant differences. The linear regression analysis indicated that the penile length has a strong and significant correlation with the foot length in the control group (r2=0.8505, p<0.001) and in the anencephalic group (r2=0.6813; p=0.0005). Conclusions This paper is the first to report the correlation between penile length and fetal foot-length in human fetuses. We did not observe significant differences in penile length development in anencephalic fetuses. We observed significant correlation between the total penile length and fetal foot length during the 2nd trimester of gestational development. *Supported by Grants from: National Council os Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq-Brazil) and Rio de Janeiro Foundation for Research Support (FAPERJ). Disclosure No