Comparison of WHO 2006 Growth Standards and Synthetic Indian References in Assessing Growth in Normal Children and Children with Growth-Related Disorders.

Introduction: A good screening tool, such as a growth chart, should distinguish between children with normal growth and those with perturbed growth. Suitability of synthetic Indian growth references for diagnosing growth-related disorders for under-five children has not been evaluated. To assess the validity of World Health Organization (WHO) 2006 standards vs synthetic Indian references (2019) (by comparing weight, height, body mass index (BMI), standard deviation scores (SDS) and the composite index of anthropometric failure (CIAF)) in differentiating normal children and children with growth-related disorders.

Methods: Records of 2188 children (0-60 months) attending a tertiary centre paediatric outpatient department (OPD) were retrospectively studied; 1854 children were healthy and 334 were diagnosed with growth-related disorders as per the European Society for Paediatric Endocrinology (ESPE) classification. The anthropometric parameters converted to Z-scores for weight-for-age (WAZ), height-for-age (HAZ), BMI-for-age (BAZ) and a CIAF were computed using WHO and synthetic charts; Student's t-test was used for assessing differences and Youden's index for validity.

Results: Disease status of children and anthropometric failure on WAZ, HAZ, BAZ and CIAF on both WHO and synthetic charts had a significant association (P-value <0.05). WAZ, HAZ on both charts and CIAF on synthetic chart had a fair to moderate agreement (Kappa statistics) with disease status as per diagnosis (P-value <0.05). The sensitivity and negative predictive value for all anthropometric parameters were higher for synthetic charts.

Conclusion: Indian charts were more sensitive for diagnosing growth-related disorders from birth to 60 months of age when compared to WHO growth standards.