The pregnancy rates of INNOVATIVE FERTILITY are submitted through its affiliation with Huntington Reproductive Center and may be viewed under that lab. These statistics are always two to three years dated and often do not reflect current advances and improvements in the lab. The current pregnancy rate can be obtained directly from our office.

For additional information on Assisted Reproductive Therapies, go to: www.sart.org
For many people, the dream of having children is not easily attained. About 15% of couples in the United States receive some type of infertility treatment. Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) has been used in the U.S. since 1981 to help couples who have difficulty conceiving achieve pregnancy. The Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology (SART) is an organization of ART providers affiliated with the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM). SART has been collecting data and publishing reports on the success rates of fertility clinics in the U.S. since 1989. For the first time in 1995, SART co-authored its report with the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) and Resolve (a national consumer organization for infertile couples). The data for this national report come from 281 fertility clinics that provided information about the outcomes of all ART cycles started in their clinics in 1995.
Many factors can influence a couple's chances of having a child by undergoing ART. The national report presents clinic specific success rates, as well as overall pooled data from all the clinics reporting. These pooled national data are useful because they can give a potential ART patient an idea of their average chances of success. Averages chances, however, do not necessarily apply to a particular individual or couple. Couples considering ART should take into consideration all the factors that apply in their particular case as well as looking at a particular clinic's success rates.
A variety of factors outside a clinic's control can affect a couple's chances of obtaining a pregnancy and a live birth by using ART. The most significant of these factors include a woman's age, and sperm abnormalities. Additional factors such as immunologic infertility, smoking (lifestyle issues), the diagnostic cause of infertility and the number of children that the woman may already have had, can also
significantly impact the success rates. For this reason some clinics may refuse to accept certain complex cases or patients over a certain age.

Success rates can be reported in a variety of ways and statistics are not always simple to interpret. As a result, information about ART success rates is very complex and it is therefore difficult to directly compare one clinic's success rate versus another. The complexity of certain cases may affect overall clinic outcomes and statistics. However, to a certain degree, success rates are related to the expertise of a clinic's staff and the quality of its laboratory. Innovative Fertility Center along with HRC is gratified to report that as a result of its treatments, several thousand babies have been born to happy parents across the United States and around the world.
The mean United States IVF pregnancy rates reported to the CDC are approximately 25%. Few programs are reporting significantly higher pregnancy rates in excess of 60% for selected groups of patients. Superior IVF pregnancy rates result from improvements in multiple factors involving IVF including: more efficient patient selection; improvements in the IVF laboratory; improved media with blastocyst transfer; development of recombinant FSH; improved luteal phase protocols for uterine preparation; and improved embryo transfer technique. Clearly, the pursuit of enhanced ART pregnancy rates is multifaceted.
 
However, patient selection is the most important factor predicting success with ART. Female age is inversely proportional to IVF success rates due to increased ovarian gonadotropin resistance and deteriorating egg quality. One reduced egg quality
presents at age 33 and accelerates after age 38. IVF pregnancy rates are 50%
lower for women older than 39 compared to women younger than 35. Moreover, few women are successful with ART after 43. Fortunately, there are techniques to identify poor candidates for IVF prior to cycle initiation. The most useful test to identify poor responders is a day 3 FSH and estradiol level.2,3 If the FSH and the estradiol level are less than 10mIU/ml and 70pg/ml, respectively, then the patient generally has an excellent prognosis. If either level is elevated the prognosis is guarded, and for those with an FSH level greater than 20 mIU/ml, success rates are less than 1%.4 For women with the intermediate test results, a more provocative test is appropriate, the clomiphene challenge test.5 This evaluation requires treatment during cycle days 5 through 9 with 100 mg of clomiphene followed by an FSH level on cycle day 10. If the FSH level is greater than 15 mIU/ml, the couple have a poor prognosis and egg donation is recommended.6
Maintaining a superior pregnancy rate requires a multifaceted, disciplined approach. Previously mentioned factors may influence IVF pregnancy rates. Providing the highest possible pregnancy rates require continual evaluation of IVF laboratories, stimulation protocols, patient selection, luteal phase protocols and embryo transfer techniques. With multiple physicians, individual pregnancy rates must be determined since variations may occur with stimulation protocols and embryo transfer techniques.
 
1. Cahill DJ, Prosser CJ,Wardle PG, Ford WCL, Hull MGR. Relative influence of serum follicle stimulating hormone, age and other factors on ovarian response to gonadotrophin stimulation. Br J Obstet Gynaecol 101:999- 1002; 1994.
   
2. FanchinR, de Ziegler D, Olivennes F, Taieb J, Dzik A, Frydman R. Exogenous follicle stimulating hormone ovarian reserve test (EFFORT): a simple and reliable screening test for detecting "poor responders" in in-vitro fertilization. Hum reprod 1994; 9:1607-11.
   
3. Hansen LM, Batzer FR, Gutmann JN, Corson SL, Kelly MP, Gocial B. Evaluating ovarian reserve: Follicle stimulating hormone and estradiol variability during cycle days 2-5. Hum Reprod 1996; 11:486-9.
   
4. Novot D, Rosenwaks Z, Margalioth EJ. Prognostic assessment of female fecundity. Lancet 2:645-7; 1987.
   
5. Hofmann GE, Sosnowski J, Scott RT, The J. Efficacy of selection criteria for ovarian reserve screening using the clomiphene citrate challenge test in a tertiary fertility center population. Fertil Steril 66:49-53; 1996.
   
6. Scott RT, Toner JF, Muasher SJ, Oehnenger SC, Robinson S, Rosenwaks Z: Follicle stimulating hormone levels on cycle day 3 are predictive of in-vitro fertilization outcome. Fertil Steril 51:651-4; 1989.
   
7. Wilcox JG, Nelson J, Potter D, Fredrick J, Feinman M, Batzofin J. Redefining poor responders may improve IVF pregnancy rates. (submitted to ASRM,March 2001)
   
8. Gardner DK, Lane M. Culture and selection of viable blastocysts: a feasible proposition for human IVF? Hum Reprod Update 3, 1997; 367-82.
   
9. Frydman R, Howles CM, Truong F. A double-blind, randomized study to compare recombinant human follicle s timulationg hormone (FSH; Gonal-F) with highly purified FSH (Metrodin HP) in women undergoing assisted reproductive techniques including intracytoplasmic sperm injection. The French Multicentre Trialists. Hum Reprod 2000; 15:520-5.
   
10. Lenton E. Soltan A, Hewett J, Thompson A, Davies W, Ashraf N, Sharma V, Jenner L, Ledger W, McVeigh E. Induction of ovulation in women undergoing assisted reproductive technologies: recombinant human FSH (follitropin alpha) versus highly purified urinary FSH. Hum Reprod 2000; 15:1021-7.
   
11. Jansen CAM, Tucker KE. Agonists and Antagonists in IVF. American Society for Reproductive Medicine SART Postgraduate Course. San Diego, October 21-25, 2000.
   
12. Wilcox JG, Nelson J, Potter D, Fredrick J, Feinman M, Batzofin J. Comparison of different luteal phase support protocols for FET. (submitted to ASRM, March 2001).
   
13. Naaktgeboren N, Broers FC, Heijnsbroik I , Oudshoorn E, Verburg H, van der Westerlaken L. Hard to believe, hardly discussed, nevertheless very important for the IVF/ICSI results: Embryo transfer technique can double or halve the pregnancy rate. Hum Reprod 1997:12S:149.
   
14. Jansen CAM, Tucker KE. Embryo transfer techniques. American Society for Reproductive Medicine Annual Meeting SART Postgraduate Course. San Diego, CA, October 21 and 22, 2000.
   
15. Ghazzawi IM, Al-Hasani S, Karaki R, Souso S. Transfer technique and catheter choice influence the incidence of transcervical embryo expulsion and the outcome of IVF. Hum Reprod 1999 Mar; 14(3):677-82.
 
 
 
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