[Diagnosis and therapy of cervical insufficiency]

Cervical insufficiency is one of the risk factors for late spontaneous miscarriage and preterm labor. As cervical insufficiency can reoccur in the every subsequent pregnancy, there is a need for precise diagnostic modality and therapeutic procedure in order to reduce perinatal mortality and morbidity. Traditionally, the diagnosis of cervical insufficiency was made based on the patient's history. In this cases the intervention in the form of the cervical cerclage, was not found to be useful, i.e. perinatal mortality and morbidity remained unchanged. It is a similar situation in cervical insufficiency suspected based on hysterosalpingography and clinical examination. Recently, ultrasound, or more precisely transvaginal cervical assessment--cervicometry, was introduced in order to assess the morphological changes indicative for cervical insufficiency. In this literature review, we analyzed ultrasound based markers of cervical insufficiency, with their specificity, sensitivity, positive and negative predictive value, as well as usefulness of cervical cerclage in such cases.