Individual Participant Data Meta-Analysis on Cervical Length and Preterm Birth

Individual participant data from 27 studies involving 91,404 asymptomatic women with singleton pregnancies, used to analyze the association between mid-trimester cervical length and spontaneous preterm birth. The data was collected by Kelly Hughes for an IPD meta-analysis, with a search updated in November 2025. It includes a mean cervical length of 40 mm and records 4,442 instances of preterm birth before 37 weeks.

Use Cases

• Modeling the non-linear association between cervical length and preterm birth risk based on the described L-shaped curve.
• Assessing how other factors modify the association between cervical length and preterm birth, as mentioned in the study's purpose.
• Validating the prognostic value of a 25 mm cervical length threshold for preterm birth prediction.
• Conducting secondary meta-analyses on individual-level clinical data from multiple cohort studies.

Strengths

• Includes individual participant data from 91,404 participants across 27 studies, enabling granular analysis.
• Reports specific statistical findings, such as the odds ratios for cervical lengths of 20 mm and 30 mm compared to 40 mm.
• The meta-analysis protocol was prospectively registered, suggesting a structured methodology.

Limitations

• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• The authors note a suboptimal data retrieval rate of 51% of all eligible participants and a lack of comprehensive co-predictors across datasets.

Provenance

Source

Aggregated from 27 eligible cohort studies and non-treatment arms of randomized controlled trials, sourced via Medline, Embase, and other databases.

Collection Method

Individual participant data meta-analysis (IPDMA) using a two-stage logistic regression model with restricted cubic splines.

Time Range

Studies were included from a search performed on 30/9/2020, updated on 4/11/2025.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-06-02 17:40:17; freshness should be verified.