Surgical closure of the incompetent cervix during pregnancy

Experience with Shirodkar's Operation and Postoperative Alcohol Treatment1

“…The operation which has been carried out at The New York Hospital since 1958, is a modification of Shirodkar's technique described by Barter et al (1,2). Shirodkar used a fascia lata strip rather than a suture.…”

Cervical Insufficiency

“…Some other authors (e.g. Barter et al, 1958;Mann et al, 1961;Mann, 1963) insist that a suture at this high level gives better results than a lower suture. Others, e.g.…”

“…Calculation of the frequency of a disease largely depends upon Barter et al, 1958 the definition of the ,disease in question. As was shown above, the definition of cervical insufficiency varies considerably.…”

“…Shirodkar's original strip of fascia lata has been replaced by threads or strips of different materials: nylon filaments (Hall, 1956;Green-Armytage andBrowne, 1957), silk thread (McDonald, 1957;Bergman, 1958), dacron mesh tubing (Barter et al, 1958), polyethylene tubing with nylon suture (Lewis and Reed, 1959) or silk suture (Rovinsky, 1960), stainless steel wire (Johnstone, 1959;Boyd, 1961), dermal graft (Hunter et al, 1961).…”

The Effect of Cervical Encerclage on Plasma Prostaglandin Concentrations During Early Human Pregnancy

“…The technique of cervical encerclage as originally described by Shirodkar (1955) and later modified by McDonald (1957) was for the prevention of habitual mid-trimester abortion * Present address: Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Southampton General Hospital Southampton. due to congenital or acquired cervical incompetence, the incidence of which is low (Barter et al, 1958;Raphael, 1966). Cervical encerclage is, however, increasingly employed in an attempt to prevent pre-term labour in patients with a history of spontaneous abortion or preterm labour (Gazarek et al, 1969), with uterine abnormality (Wajntraub et al, 1975) or with placenta praevia (Von Friesen, 1972).…”