Growth and development of the liver in human foetuses

Abstract

Background: Liver is the largest compound gland in the body. Liver is one of the organs of interest for researchers since a long time. Though, detailed study about adult liver is there but liver at different stages in the fetal period is far less available. The present study attempted to find out the relationship between the body weight and liver weight in different gestational weeks of foetuses.

Methods: The study was carried out on 40 spontaneously aborted human foetuses of known gestational age ranging from 10 weeks to 38 weeks. The weight of the foetuses was measured in grams on digital weighing machine. The anterior abdominal wall was dissected and the liver was removed. The weight of the liver was measured in grams on digital weighing machine. Data of the study were statistical analyzed by using the Microsoft Excel 2007 program.

Results: The average body weight of foetuses at 10th week and 38th week was 28 and 3200 gm respectively. The average weight of liver at 10th week and 38th week was 2.2 and 120.1 gm respectively. The relative ratio between liver weight and body weight at 10th week and 38th week are 7.86 and 3.75 respectively.

Conclusions: Evaluating body and liver weights and measurements against known standards is an important part of perinatal pathology. It also provides new insights to the anatomist and clinician for understanding and developing knowledge in both normal and pathological conditions of liver tissue.