The clinical value of intelligent quantitative measurement of cervical elastography in predicting spontaneous preterm birth during second trimester

Objective: To evaluate the performance of cervical elastographic parameters combined with cervical length(CL) in predicting spontaneous preterm birth(sPTB) during second trimester. Methods: A total of 431 singleton pregnancies who received routine prenatal care in our hospital from 1 Jan 2019 and 31 Dec 2020 were included. Accor-ding to pregnancy outcome, subjects were divided into study group(n=31, preterm birth) and control group(n=400, term birth). CL was measured by transvaginal ultrasound, and the cervical elasticity parameters were obtained by elastography, including elasticity contrast index (ECI), hardness ratio (HR), mean strain at internal ostium (IOS), mean strain at external ostium (EOS), the ratio of IOS to EOS (IOS/EOS ). Differences in above ultrasound parameters between the two groups were analyzed. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was performed to assess the value of the above ultrasound parameters in predicting sPTB. Results: CL was lower but ECI, IOS,IOS/EOS were highe