Making Sense Of ART Statistics

What does it mean if you are told that a program has a 40% pregnancy rate? Clearly a good grasp of the components of an ART cycle is critical to a true understanding of the complex statistics provided by different programs. Click here for questions to ask when selecting an IVF program. The CDC (Center for Disease Control) recently released the latest national and clinic specific IVF results.

Initiated cycles refers to all attempts at ovulation induction with the intent to perform an ART cycle. If the response is suboptimal then cancellation may occur. Some programs will not accept older women or men with a severe sperm abnormality. These couples are more likely to have cycles canceled due to failure of ovulation induction and fertilization respectively. We accept women over the age of 40 as long as they have adequate ovarian function. We accept men with severe abnormalities and have been very successful even with sperm counts of under 100,000 with poor motility and in cases of a failed vascectomy reversal.

Retrievals refer to the actual attempt to obtain the eggs from the ovarian follicles. In order to get to the stage of embryo transfer a successful egg retrieval has to be performed as well as fertilization and initial embryo development in the laboratory.

A clinical pregnancy refers to the identification of a pregnancy sac in the uterus. A miscarriage may however still subsequently occur. It is therefore important to consider the live delivery rate.

Two frequently used statistics need to be clearly identified and understood. The delivery rate per retrieval provides an insight into the likelihood of having a baby if a retrieval is performed. This is of more practical importance than the other statistic of clinical pregnancy rate per embryo transfer. The clinical pregnancy does not take the likelihood of miscarriage into account, while cycles canceled before retrieval or due to failure of fertilization are not factored into this number. The clinical pregnancy rate per embryo transfer does provide good insight into the quality of a program and is frequently used in the medical literature. The physicans at Shady Grove Fertility have published the comprehensive results of all IVF treatment cycles since the inception of the program in 1991. The IVFstatistics are further reported by patient age, diagnosis, and prognosis. We believe that this detail is necessary for you to have a realistic understanding of your chances of having a baby through IVF at Shady Grove Fertility.

*A comparison of clinic success rates may not be meaningful because patient medical characteristics and treatment approaches may vary from clinic to clinic.

To view our most recent success rates go to SFG statistics.