Cerclage

Encircling with a ring, loop, wire, or ligature. Cerlage can be around bone fragments to hold them together. But it usually refers to the cervix. The word comes from the French "circlage" meaning an encircling.

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1. Bringing into close opposition and binding together the ends of an obliquely fractured bone by a ring or by an encircling, tightly drawn wire loop. 2. Operation for retinal detachment in which the choroid and retinal pigment epithelium are brought in contact with the detached sensory retina by a band encircling the sclera posterior to the insertion of the ocular rectus muscles. 3. The placing of a nonabsorbable suture around an incompetent cervical os. [Fr. an encircling, hooping, banding]

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cer·clage ser-'kläzh, (.)sər- n any of several procedures for increasing tissue resistance in a functionally incompetent uterine cervix that usu. involve reinforcement with an inert substance esp. in the form of sutures near the internal opening

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cer·clage (ser-klahzhґ) [Fr. “an encircling”] encircling of a part with a ring or loop, such as encirclement of the incompetent cervix uteri with suture material, or the binding together of the ends of a fractured bone with a metal ring or wire loop.

Cerclage used for reduction of bulging membranes at 23 weeks. Bladder was filled with saline, stay silk sutures on anterior and posterior cervical lips provided traction, and cerclage was placed distal to reduced membranes.