[Experiences with the Shirodkar-McDonald cerclage in the treatment of cervix insufficiency]

A clinical-statistical study of 1040 pregnancies after cerclage between 1965 and 1982. Over the same period 28,033 births were registered. Frequency of cerclage was 3.7%. Of 1682 pregnancies in the same patients without cerclage, 47.3% of the children survived, while of the 1040 pregnancies with cerclage, 92% of the children survived. The rate of abortion sank from 44% to 5.8%, the frequency of premature birth from 17.6% to 13.1%. The mothers' course of pregnancy, delivery and puerperium were normal. The relative frequency of Caesarean sections and vacuum extractions was slightly lower than that of the whole group. An attempt is made to ascribe the high success rate of 92% to the following facts: that in 75.4% of the cases, these were prophylactic cerclages; that in all cases the bladder was displaced; that, on the day of surgery, nearly all patients received a tocolytic slow drip infusion as prophylaxis; and that the low mortality rate (10.5%) among premature infants is due to excellent collaboration with the intensive care ward for premature infants in the same hospital. As regards indication, surgical techniques, antenatal counselling and management of delivery, the homogeneity of the group observed over this 17-year period is presumably another positive factor.