SAN FRANCISCO– Predicting and preventing preterm birth continues to be a challenge for clinicians, but new research into the cervicovaginal microbiome could help explain the premature cervical remodeling that precedes preterm birth and ultimately lead to the development of novel therapeutics.
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania recently found that there is a distinct molecular profile in the cervix that is associated with preterm birth and can be assessed noninvasively using RNA Pap testing.
In a video interview at the annual meeting of the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, Dr. Michal Elovitz, director of the maternal and child health research program and the prematurity prevention program at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, said that the findings represent a “fork in the road” that could change how clinicians treat preterm birth, provided the findings can be validated in other studies.
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