This study by Esplin et al. (JAMA, 2017) analyzed cervical length and serial measurements of vaginal fetal fibronectin levels to determine whether they are good predictors for spontaneous preterm birth.
Multi-center Prospective Observational Cohort Study
9,410 nulliparous women of varied racial and ethnic backgrounds were included in the study. 5% of these women had spontaneous preterm deliveries. Only 8% of the women who experienced spontaneous preterm birth had a cervical length of ≤ 25mm at 15-22 weeks gestation while 23.3% had a shortened cervical length at 22-30 weeks gestation. Among women with spontaneous preterm birth, fetal fibronectin levels of ≥ 50 ng/mL were seen in 7.3% of women at 16-22 weeks gestation and 8.1% in women at 22-30 weeks gestation. Based on the above, the authors concluded that neither cervical length nor quantitative fetal fibronectin levels are useful in predicting spontaneous preterm birth in the setting of nulliparous women with singleton pregnancies.
Unproven Technologies in Maternal-Fetal Medicine and the High Cost of US Health Care
Common tests for preterm birth not useful for routine screening of first-time pregnancies
Please log in to ObGFirst to access the 2T US Atlas
OBG Project CME requires a modern web browser (Internet Explorer 10+, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge). Certain educational activities may require additional software to view multimedia, presentation, or printable versions of their content. These activities will be marked as such and will provide links to the required software. That software may be: Adobe Flash, Apple QuickTime, Adobe Acrobat, Microsoft PowerPoint, Windows Media Player, or Real Networks Real One Player.
This educational activity may contain discussion of published and/or investigational uses of agents that are not indicated by the FDA. The planners of this activity do not recommend the use of any agent outside of the labeled indications.
The opinions expressed in the educational activity are those of the faculty and do not necessarily represent the views of the planners. Please refer to the official prescribing information for each product for discussion of approved indications, contraindications, and warnings.
Participants have an implied responsibility to use the newly acquired information to enhance patient outcomes and their own professional development. The information
presented in this activity is not meant to serve as a guideline for patient management. Any procedures, medications, or other courses of diagnosis or treatment discussed or suggested in this activity should not be used by clinicians without evaluation of their patient’s conditions and possible contraindications and/or dangers in use, review of any applicable manufacturer’s product information, and comparison with recommendations of other authorities.
Jointly provided by
