IVF Success Rates Video
Understanding the Significance of IVF Success Rates
Dr. Norbert Gleicher explains how IVF success rates are calculated and interpreted.
Our website has a wealth of information about IVF success rates. You can read more by visiting this page: http://www.centerforhumanreprod.com/ivf-success-rates.html
Video Transcript
Title: IVF: Should a patient interpret IVF success rates of various centers?
Speaker: Dr. Norbert Gleicher
"IVF success rates are another highly complex issue in our specialty because different people consider different things as success. Because outcome numbers obviously depend on who the patients are who you're treating and CHR in many ways is a very good example. Ninety percent of patients who come to CHR before coming to CHR have already been to at least one other IVF center and have failed IVF at other IVF centers. Over 50 percent of patients who come to CHR have been told by at least one other IVF center that they are done with use of their own eggs and they should actually go into egg donation. So, CHR serves probably the most adversely selected patient population of any IVF center in the US and probably in the world. Nevertheless we here at CHR are very proud in listing our pregnancy outcomes because despite the fact that we have such a highly adversely selected patient population we still have excellent pregnancy rates in them and you know that's all one can say, even though we would never compare our outcomes to those of another center. Our recommendation to educated patients, and most educated patients by now know this, don't only look at pregnancy rates. Also ask whom the patients are that the center treats. If they have very high exclusion rates, if they don't treat patients above a certain age, or if they don't treat patients unless they have a certain minimum number of follicles, or if they don't treat patients above a certain FSH, understand what that means in terms of outcome results."
- Ask what the patient population is like, when comparing IVF success rates: Does the center treat patients like yourself?
- High success rates can be achieved by rejecting patients with "difficult cases."
TEXT: Dr. Gleicher is Founder and Medical Director of Center for Human Reproduction, located in New York City. He has over 30 years of experience in the field of reproductive endocrinology and infertility. As a physician dedicated to both clinical care and research, he has published hundreds of peer-reviewed scientific papers in some of the most important medical journals, as well as wrote and edited a number of textbooks that are now classics. He has served on many editorial boards, and is a frequently invited speaker at medical conferences all over the world.
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Last Updated: November 2, 2011
