Quantitative sonoelastography of the uterine cervix prior to induction of labor as a predictor of cervical dilation time

Abstract

The approximate Young's modulus is superior to the Bishop score and the cervical length measurements concerning the prediction of cervical dilation time and the risk of prolonged dilation time after induction of labor.

Diagnostic accuracy of cervical elastography in predicting labor induction success: a systematic review and meta-analysis

“…After reviewing the full-text of the selected six articles, we excluded two further articles because it was not possible to extract the numbers of TP, FP, FN, and TN for an established score threshold [18,23]. Finally, four studies were included for meta-analysis [19][20][21][22]. In Figure 1, the study selection flow diagram is shown.…”

“…Even though this software was designed for cardiac imaging, its use has been largely established in a lot of other medical fields (hepatology, breast disease, endocrinology, or surgery), working with extrinsic freehand movement of tissue compression exerted through the ultrasound probe [19]. Another method used to estimate the approximate Young's modulus of the anterior cervical lip is by using a reference cap applied on the end of the transvaginal transducer during elastography and using a Voluson E8 Expert scanner with the BT13 and H48681GB software (GE Healthcare Austria, Zipf, Austria) [20]. Although cervical length or Bishop score were considered as comparator tests in the cervical elastography literature, in this study no comparator test was considered for eligibility.…”

“…The included studies, published between 2013 and 2014, considered 323 women enrolled for labor induction at term of pregnancy [19][20][21][22]. In Table 1, the characteristics of the included and excluded studies are shown.…”

“…In Table 1, the characteristics of the included and excluded studies are shown. Three studies were conducted in European countries [19,20,22] and one study in South Korea [21]. All studies were prospective and included term pregnancies.…”

“…This new ultrasound tool aims to allow an objective evaluation of the cervical stiffness, thus potentially replacing the current subjective evaluation by digital palpation. Several approaches have been proposed with encouraging preliminary results, and now clinical studies evaluating the effectiveness of cervical elastography in predicting preterm delivery [12][13][14][15][16] and a successful labor induction are rapidly increasing [8,[17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24]. We performed this meta-analysis to assess the accuracy of cervix elastography in predicting labor induction success.…”