Clinical outcome of therapeutic cervical cerclage in short cervix syndrome

Abstract

Objective: To investigate the clinical effect of therapeutic cervical cerclage on short cervix syndrome for anti-premature birth in the second trimester. Methods: Totally 44 singleton pregnant patients were diagnosed as short cervix syndrome, which was cervical length ≤2.5 cm without cervical dilatation, and received treatment from January 2008 and July 2015 in Peking University Third Hospital were collected. Among them, 30 patients who received therapeutic cervical cerclage were defined as cerclage group and another 14 cases who received conservative treatment were defined as un-cerclage group. The days of conservative treatment, delivery rate of different gestational weeks, birth weight of newborns, neonatal survival rate within 7 days of birth were analyzed between the two groups. Results: There were no significant differences between the two groups in days of pregnancy conservative treatment [103 (84-141) vs 105 (85-114) days], delivery weeks [38.0 (35.5-39.4) vs 38.5 (37.3-39.5) weeks], birth weight of newborns [3 120 (2 750-3 400) vs 3 130 (2 760-3 545) g], and survival rate of newborns [100% (30/30) vs 13/14]. The fetuses of both groups were all delivered after 28 weeks. There was no significant difference in accumulated delivery rate between the two groups after 32 weeks, 34 weeks, and 37 weeks, respectively (all P>0.05) . Conclusions: The treatment of cervical cerclage is not superior to conservative means in single pregnancy of cervical length ≤2.5 cm without cervical dilatation. For such patients with short cervix syndrome, the treatment of cervical cerclage may not be necessary, but dynamic monitoring and search for the causing factors and prompt treatment are more important.