Combination helps nulliparous women: PG[E.sub.2] plus foley catheter speeds cervical ripening.(Obstetrics)

PHILADELPHIA -- Adding prostaglandin [E.sub.2] gel to a Foley balloon catheter significantly cut the time needed for cervical ripening in nulliparous women, compared with using a Foley catheter and no prostaglandin in a controlled study of 125 women.

Combined treatment may be appealing to nulliparous women who would benefit from a shorter time to preinduction cervical ripening and therefore a shorter overall time to delivery, Dr. Kara A. Pitt said while presenting a poster at the annual meeting of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

Two common methods for cervical ripening are treatment with an intracervical Foley balloon catheter and treatment with prostaglandin [E.sub.2] (PG[E.sub.2]) gel, but little information exists pertianing to the efficacy of a combination of both methods, compared with the Foley catheter alone.

This question was addressed by a study that enrolled women who had an indication for induced labor at Women and Infants' Hospital in Providence, R.I., between April 2002 and April 2003. All women had a singleton pregnancy that had progressed to at least 24 weeks' gestation with cephalic presentation, intact membranes, and a reassuring fetal test. All women had a Bishop score of 5 or less.

The women's average age was about 25 years old, and the average gestation age of their pregnancies was 38 weeks. Approximately half of the women were nulliparous.

The women were treated with a Foley ...