The body surface area of adult Chinese males was estimated by using paper cast method.56 healthy individuals, aged 18 to 45, coming from thirteen provinces mostly from Hebei and Hubei were used in this study. From the results obtained, the mean body weight, height and surface area were 59.78kg, 168.8 cm and 1.712 m2 respectively. A height-weight equation for estimating body surface area was derived accordingly, i.e. body surface area(m2)= 0.00607H(cm) + 0.0127W(kg)-0.0689. The error of the value calculated from the equation was 0.17% higher than the value actually taken on an average. The percentage of various body regions to the total body surface area was as follows: head, 6.11; trunk (including neck), 29.59; upper arms, 8.09; forearms, 6.41; hands, 4.93; thighs (including buttock), 24.63; calf, 13.29 and feet, 6.95.For convenient use a table for calculation was given.

We had previously reported the height-weight formula for the estimation of body surface area of adult Chinese males (this journal 6(2):87, 1984). In this study, by using the same paper cast method, a formula for the adult Chinese females was obtained from the data of 44 healthy subjects (age 18-45) coming from 15 provinces. The mean body weight, height and surface area measured were 52.13?6.22 kg, 159.3?5.18 cm and 1.546?0.105 m2 respectively. The formula thus derived was: body surface area (m2) = 0.00586H (cm) +0.0126W (kg)-0.0461. The value calculated from it was 0.03% less than the value actually measured on an average. The percentage of various body regions to the total body surface area was as follows: head, 6.33; trunk (including neck), 28.27; upper arms, 8.29; forearms, 6.65; hands, 4.52; thighs (including buttocks), 27.40; calves, 12.83 and feet, 6.65.