Progesterone Treatment for Prevention of Preterm Birth

Hyun-Joo Seol; Suk Joo Choi; Soo-young Oh

doi:10.14734/PN.2016.27.4.205

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Seol, Choi, and Oh: Progesterone Treatment for Prevention of Preterm Birth

Review article

Perinatology 2016; 27(4): 205-215.

Published online: 31 December 2016

DOI: https://doi.org/10.14734/PN.2016.27.4.205

Progesterone Treatment for Prevention of Preterm Birth

Hyun-Joo Seol, MD, PhD¹, Suk Joo Choi, MD, PhD², Soo-young Oh, MD, PhD²

¹Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, School of Medicine, Kyung Hee University, Seoul, Korea.

²Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Samsung Medical Center, Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.

Correspondence to: Soo-young Oh, MD, PhD. Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Samsung Medical Center, 81, Irwon-ro, Gangnam-gu, Seoul 06351, Korea. Seoul, Korea. Tel: +82-2-3410-3517, Fax: +82-2-3410-0630, ohsymd@skku.edu

Received 25 November 2016 Revised 12 December 2016 Accepted 14 December 2016

(open-access, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/):

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Preterm birth is the main cause of neonatal mortality and morbidity worldwide. Although many attempts and clinical trials have conducted to prevent preterm birth during the past decades, no convincing strategy was developed so far. In this background, there is no doubt that the research area under the spotlight in recent ten years was about progesterone treatment in women at high risk for preterm birth including prior preterm birth and short cervical length. This rigorous review aimed to provide the most updated knowledge on progesterone treatment for the prevention of preterm birth for physicians and included the history and the proposed mechanism of progesterone treatment, summary of clinical trials of progesterone treatment in singleton and twin gestation with prior spontaneous preterm birth and short cervical length, respectively. It also adduces long term outcomes in infants whose mother exposed to progesterone treatment during pregnancy and presents current evidence on comparison between intramuscular versus vaginal progesterone for the prevention of recurrent preterm birth.

Keywords: Preterm birth, Progesterone, Prior preterm birth, Short cervical length, Twin

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