[Cerclage by the abdominal route]

The authors, having carried out two cerclage operations through the abdominal route for cervico-isthmic incompetence, review the literature and assess the advantages and disadvantages of this method. This surgical technique makes it possible to put the stitch exactly at the level that is needed. It can be carried out when the cervix is very short, effaced or totally distorted. The results that have been obtained in the larger series are striking: the percentage of infants that survived before the operation was between 10.4% and 24% and after the operation between 70% and 95%. The complications described in the literature have been rare: haemorrhage from damage to the veins at the time of the operation: fetal death in the days after the stitch had been placed badly so that the uterine vessels were occluded. As far as we know, there has never been a case of infection.