By Amy Erickson Hagen GIVF Compliance Officer
I’m a science person. My brain just thinks better with facts and figures than it does with abstracts. So I thought it may be nice to provide some facts about success rates. SART is an organization that ART clinics report their statistics to. These statistics tell the number of cycles nationally per year as well as factors such as number of embryos transferred and live birth rate based on maternal age.
Below is a table summarizing treatment cycles of clinics within the United States in 2009 for women using fresh embryo’s from non-donor oocytes of all treatment and diagnosis types. You can also obtain statistics for frozen embryos as well as those derived from donor oocytes. While these statistics below are nationally they are a way of looking at overall success of the clinic you are using as well. Does the clinic you choose make a difference? Absolutely! However there is much more to statistics to judge a clinics success but for me (love science) I would start with statistics to make my clinic selection.
|
Fresh Embryos From Non-Donor Oocytes |
<35 |
35-37 |
38-40 |
41-42 |
>42 |
|
Number of cycles |
39,465 |
20,545 |
20,911 |
9,389 |
5,916 |
|
Percentage of cycles resulting in pregnancies |
47.6 |
38.9 |
30.1 |
20.5 |
9.0 |
|
Percentage of cycles resulting in live births |
41.4 |
31.7 |
22.3 |
12.6 |
4.2 |
|
(Reliability Range) |
(41.0 – 41.9) |
(31.1 – 32.4) |
(21.7 – 22.9) |
(11.9 – 13.2) |
(3.6 – 4.7) |
|
Percentage of retrievals resulting in live births |
44.6 |
35.5 |
25.9 |
15.2 |
5.3 |
|
Percentage of transfers resulting in live births |
47.5 |
38.2 |
28.3 |
17.0 |
6.2 |
|
Percentage of cycles with elective single embryo transfer |
7.2 |
4.0 |
1.2 |
0.5 |
0.4 |
|
Percentage of cancellations |
7.1 |
10.6 |
13.9 |
17.3 |
21.8 |
|
Implantation rate |
35.6 |
26.1 |
17.1 |
9.1 |
3.8 |
|
Average number of embryos transferred |
2.1 |
2.3 |
2.7 |
3.1 |
3.1 |
|
Percentage of live births with twins |
32.9 |
27.4 |
20.9 |
15.8 |
9.3 |
|
Percentage of live births with triplets or more |
1.6 |
1.5 |
1.7 |
0.5 |
0 |
Source: 2009 SART clinic reports, https://www.sartcorsonline.com/rptCSR_PublicMultYear.aspx?ClinicPKID=0
According to SART data in 2009 about 30% of cycles in the United States in which women underwent IVF and embryo transfer with their own eggs resulted in the live birth of at least one infant. This rate has been improving slowly but steadily over the years. For example, the corresponding national rate for 1989 was only 14%. To put these figures into perspective, studies have shown that the rate of pregnancy in couples with proven fertility in the past is only about 20% per cycle. Therefore, although a figure of 30% may sound low, it is greater than the chance that a fertile couple will conceive in any given cycle.
So I’m not going to do IVF, what are my chances with donor semen? That is a great question. Depending on your age and the treatment method you are using that can range from 7-29% according to SRMS (http://www.dreamababy.com/success-rates.htm) in Fort Meyers, FL reporting of 10 years of data. Donor insemination IUI is not required to be reported to SART so the statistics are much harder to gather.
What I commonly tell clients I’m working with is the more expensive the treatment the more success there commonly is. However, it rarely hurts to start on the lower level of technology because maybe all you need is a little bit of help to get everything working properly. Work with a reproductive processional to help guide you to make the best decisions for you for your situation. If you have limited time or fewer limitations on monetary resources you may want to start at IVF to obtain the best odds bringing home a baby sooner.
