Study casts doubt over widely practised surgical procedure to reduce premature birth (p 1849)June 02, 2004A common surgical procedure to prevent the cervix opening during pregnancy-thought to reduce the risk of preterm delivery-is called into question by results of a study in this week's issue of THE LANCET. Cervical cerclage (stitching to keep the cervix closed) has been widely used in the past 50 years to prevent early preterm birth. Kypros Nicolaides from Kings College Hospital, London, UK, and colleagues used ultrasound screening to identify women with a short cervix (assumed to be at a higher risk of premature delivery) and randomized 250 such women to receive either cervical cerclage or no surgery. Only a small decrease in the proportion of premature births (defined as delivery at or before 33 weeks pregnancy) occurred among women given cervical cerclage (22%) compared with women not given surgery (26%). These proportions are far higher than the UK average for risk of premature delivery (1.5%), highlighting how the ultrasound measurement identified a subgroup of women with small cervices at a high risk of preterm delivery. Professor Nicolaides comments: "The insertion of a Shirodkar suture in women with a short cervix does not substantially reduce the risk of early preterm delivery. Routine sonographic measurement of cervical length at 22-24 weeks identifies a group at high risk of early preterm birth." | |||||||||||||||||||||
Science Research Departments
Earth Science Alternative Energy | Anthropology and Archaeology | Earthquakes and Volcanoes | Environment and Nature News | Global Warming | High-Energy and Particle Physics | Ozone Hole | Scientists Slow Light | Tsunami Space Science Astronomy and Space News | Black Holes | Chandra X-Ray Observatory | Extrasolar Planets | Hubble Telescope | International Space Station | Jupiter Galileo Mission | Jupiter Cassini Mission Flyby | Mars Exploration | Mars Odyssey 2001 | Mars Global Surveyor | Mars Polar Lander | Mars Climate Orbiter | Mars Pathfinder | Meteors and Asteroids | Mir Space Station | NEAR Asteroid Probe Mission | Pluto Planet Debate | Search for Extraterrestrial Life | Space Shuttle Program | Space Shuttle Mission: STS-102 | Space Weather Life Science Animal News | Biotechnology and Genetics | Brain Research | Human Cloning | Dinosaur and Fossil Discoveries | Endangered Species | Gene Therapy | Genetically Modified Food | Stem Cell Research | Whales and Whaling |
|||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||