Advanced Fertility Center of Chicago Blog

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a US government agency, has just released a preliminary version of its 2007 Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) Report. It expects to release the final version in December.

The Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology (SART) released its version of the report on 2007 IVF cycles several months ago. However, clinics are not required by law to report to SART. They are required to report to the CDC. Therefore, the CDC report shows success rates for more clinics than the SART report does.

The CDC report covers data from 430 fertility clinics. Over 142,000 assisted reproductive technology (or IVF) cycles were done at these “reporting clinics”.

There were (as always) some fertility clinics that broke federal law and refused to report their data. These IVF clinics are referred to as “non-reporting clinics”. If fertility doctors will go so far as to break federal law to keep their IVF outcome statistics from the public – those “non-reporting clinics” most likely have very low success rates.

Before you choose a fertility clinic for IVF – check success rates.

Links to both the CDC and the SART IVF success rate reports

See our IVF success rates

Learn about blastocyst transfer

Couples with infertility often need IVF to get pregnant.

What should they know about IVF clinic success rates?

• An interesting and unusual aspect of IVF is that there is a definitive outcome for each procedure.
• When an IVF cycle is done there is a baby born from it – or there is not. Therefore, keeping track of (and comparing) IVF live birth success rates is very straightforward.
• Medical treatments in general rarely have such “black and white” outcomes.
• Another unique aspect of IVF is that (in the US) all IVF clinics are required by federal law to report their in vitro fertilization success rates annually to the government. The CDC, a US government agency produces a report called the “Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) Report” detailing IVF success rates for all individual clinics.
• This report is commonly called the CDC IVF success rate report. It is released to the public on the web every year (usually in December or January).
• Another useful report, the SART report (Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology), is very similar to the CDC report – and it is released about a year earlier. However, clinics are not required by law to report to SART – so some clinics are not listed there.
• These 2 annual reports allow consumers to view and compare IVF success rates for reputable fertility clinics.

(continue reading…)