abstract Objective: To determine the accuracy with which a cervicovaginal fetal fibronectin
test predicts spontaneous preterm birth in women with or without symptoms of preterm
labour. Design: Systematic quantitative review of studies of test accuracy. Data sources:
Medline, Embase, PASCAL, Biosis, Cochrane Library, Medion, National Research Register,
SCISEARCH, conference papers, manual searching of bibliographies of known primary and
review articles, and contact with experts and manufacturer. Study selection: Two reviewers …

We studied the accuracy with which the cervico-vaginal fetal fibronectin test predicts
spontaneous preterm birth in asymptomatic and symptomatic pregnant women. This was a
systematic quantitative review of test accuracy studies. Two reviewers selected and
extracted data on study characteristics, quality and accuracy independently. Accuracy data
were used to form 2× 2 contingency tables with spontaneous preterm birth before 34 and 37
weeks' gestation and birth within 7–10 days of testing (only for symptomatic pregnant …