Abstract
Annually, about 15 million preterm infants are born in the world. Of these, due to complications resulting from their premature birth, about 1 million would die before the age of five. Since the high incidence of preterm birth (PTB) is partially due to the lack of effective diagnostic modalities, methodologies are needed to determine risk of PTB. We propose a noninvasive tool based on polarized light imaging aimed at measuring the organization of collagen in the cervix. Cervical collagen has been shown to remodel with the approach of parturition. We used a full-field Mueller matrix polarimetric colposcope to assess and compare cervical collagen content and structure in nonpregnant and pregnant women in vivo. Local collagen directional azimuth was used and a total of eight cervices were imaged.
Highlights
With the incidence rate exceeding 11% in the United States and 15%1 in the developing countries, preterm birth (PTB), defined as labor prior to 37 weeks of gestation, is the leading cause of infant death worldwide
Mueller matrix polarimetry has a shallow penetration depth, it is capable of measuring collagen in the stroma as we have demonstrated in our previous work.[29]
Study 1 was conducted at the Simulation Teaching and Research Center (STAR Center) at Florida International University (FIU) and focused on healthy nonpregnant women
Summary
With the incidence rate exceeding 11% in the United States and 15%1 in the developing countries, preterm birth (PTB), defined as labor prior to 37 weeks of gestation, is the leading cause of infant death worldwide. Among the current approaches to diagnose PTB are tactile and visual inspection of the cervix to determine dilation and fetal fibronectin immunoassay.[9] Ultrasound examination is a powerful tool in the prediction of labor and focuses on measurements of cervical thickness.[10] Shorter cervical thickness is used to identify a higher risk of PTB. A more reliable diagnosis method could allow physicians to work on delaying birth earlier to give the fetus more development time.
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