Cervical cerclage in the treatment of cervical incompetence in Zambian women.

Over a period of 5 years from January 1989 to October 1994, 207 patients with cervical incompetence were managed with Mac Donald's cervical cerclage at Nkana/Wusikili Mine Hospitals, Kitwe, Zambia. The incidence rate of cervical incompetence in our population was 1.47%. Our results confirmed a success rate of 90.8% as compared to 52.5% in previous pregnancies. This represents 159 (76.8%) full term pregnancies, 29 (14%) premature deliveries and 19 (9.2%) abortions. Post operation total survival rate was 87.4% with fetal salvage ratio of 1.68. We confirmed that optimum time to insert cerclage was 18 weeks and below. The possibility of having a mature baby in the group of low number previous abortions was significantly higher as compared to the group with a higher number of habitual abortions. Better pregnancy outcome was seen in low parity group (less than 2 previous deliveries) as compared to higher parity group. Our study confirms that cervical cerclage is a successful way in the treatment of cervical incompetence.