PALPEBRAL FISSURE LENGTH AND ITS CORRELATION WITH GESTATIONAL AGE AND HEAD CIRCUMFERENCE IN THE NEWBORN Ismail Abou El-Ela; Iman Abd El-Rehim;Samia El-Henawy; Mohamed Sabry SalcimEssam and El-Mathouly* Departments of Paediatrics and Opthalmology*, Benha Faculty of Medicine, Zagazig University. ABSTRACT One hundred and fifty newborn infants from Neonatal care unit of Benha Faculty of Medicine Hospital were studied. They were subjected to estimation of gestational age, anthropometric measurements, clinical examination and eye measurements including palpebral fissure length, interpupillary distance, intermedial canthal distance and interlateral canthal distance. The mean values of all studied eye measurements were significantly higher in full term (100 infants) than in preterm newborns (50 infants). The palpebral fissure length ranged from 1.6 to 2.5 cm (mean 1.938 ± 0.213) in full term and from 1.2 to 1.7 cm (mean 1.498 ± 0.171) in preterm infants with no difference between right and left eyes. There was significant positive correlation between palpebral fissure length and gestational age in both full term and preterm group. A significant positive correlation was also found between palpebral fissure length and head circumference of the full term and preterm infants. J A G, Vol. 2, No. 4, December 1991