We thank Danhof et al for their interest in our work and welcome the opportunity to clarify our methodology. First, we excluded four of the studies after diligent review against explicit inclusion and exclusion criteria. The studies by Albrechtsen et al and Kristensen et al were excluded because we were unable to isolate the data of women who had loop electrosurgical excision procedure (LEEP) from other cervical excision procedures, which would not answer our question of the association between LEEP and preterm birth. Further, we excluded the studies by Jakobsson et al and Bruinsma et al because they included women with cervical cancer, in whom treatment and outcomes are clearly different from patients with dysplasia only. Finally, the study by Ortoft et al6 was, in fact, included in our meta-analysis.
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