IVF SUCCESS
Current ongoing pregnancy rate per egg retrieval for women less than 35 years old with normal ovarian function.
(last 9 reporting months n=32) 69%
For over 20 years, our primary mission has been to provide the highest possible success in an extremely sensitive, personal, and cost effective manner. When it comes to success rates, we feel it is our responsibility to provide you honest, accurate and meaningful information so that you can make an informed decision on how to proceed on your journey to have a baby. The challenge is that every person has a unique set of characteristics that make comparisons difficult. The secret to making an informed decision is to make sure you are comparing yourself to people with similar characteristics.
In the last 9 reporting months, a patient with normal egg number and quality who is less than 35 years old had an ongoing pregnancy rate* at ARMS of 69% (n=32), one of the highest such rates in the country. This is a testament to the quality that you will experience at ARMS. However, what most people want to know is the most realistic pregnancy rate estimate that can be given for them, considering their unique characteristics and medical history.
In order to better serve the information needs of our patients, we have partnered with a cutting edge statistics company developed at Stanford University called Univfy. This company has utilized advanced statistical analysis combined with large IVF database validation from clinics around the world to allow them to provide you a more precise estimate of your chances for success in IVF. Instead of controlling for only one variable – age, Univfy simultaneously controls for 21 variables. This provides you with a more personalized prediction of your chances of success with IVF.
Some clinics encourage a comparison of pregnancy rates between clinics based on statistics available through government agencies or professional organizations. Such comparisons are not valid due to the fact that the information provided by these companies does not control for even the most critical variables such as egg quality or sperm quality. These agencies specifically state, “A comparison of clinic success rates may not be meaningful because patient medical characteristics, treatment approaches, and entrance criteria for ART may vary from clinic to clinic.” The only possible comparison between clinics that can be made is between donor egg programs since this controls for egg quality. Even this does not control for sperm quality or other critical factors. Our Donor egg program has consistently had between a 50 and 85% live birth rate which, year over year, has been comparable or markedly better than all of the clinics in the valley.
The other problem with the success rates presented by most clinics in the valley is that they are only presenting fresh pregnancy rates not CUMMULATIVE PREGNANCY RATES and sometimes emphasize ongoing pregnancy rates other than LIVE BIRTH RATES.
Cumulative Pregnancy Rates
In many IVF cycles, more embryos are created than should be put back. Responsible clinics will transfer only one or two embryos and then freeze the rest. The greatest expense in the IVF process is getting the eggs and creating the embryos. What most patients want to know is, “If I do this, what’s my chance of having a baby.” The ONLY WAY to accurately represent this is to account for all live births that occur from either the transfer of embryos in the cycle in which they were obtained (FRESH) or from the transfer of embryos from the same egg retrieval that were frozen and transferred later (FROZEN).
Current ongoing pregnancy rate for all FROZEN cycles (last 9 reporting months n=98) 58%
For over twenty years we have been providing our patients this information, grouped by age, ovarian function and sperm quality. We call this our cumulative live birth rate.
Cumulative Live Birth Rates
*Live Birth Rates
Cumulative live birth rate is the most meaningful way to present IVF outcomes. Live birth rates are babies actually born alive to our patients. The only problem with presenting data this way is you have to wait for the babies to be born and you have to rely on the patients to provide that outcome data. The process of waiting for the babies to be born and the obtaining, validating, and organizing the data usually means that the live birth data is delayed by 1 year. In order to present the cumulative live birth rate, you must account for the babies born from not only the fresh cycle, but the frozen cycles too. This means that this data is always going to be delayed by 2 years. Because many of our competitors choose to present ongoing pregnancy rates, we feel obligated to do so also. Ongoing pregnancy rates are pregnancies that have been documented by pregnancy in the uterus with a heartbeat confirmed on ultrasound. We present our ongoing pregnancy rates as the most recent 9 months because this is the most current data we can provide and because this is the time period that cannot be presented with anything other than ongoing pregnancy rates. The difference between live birth rates and ongoing pregnancy rates is the pregnancy loss rate. The absolute difference between the live birth rate and the pregnancy rate in the last reporting year for the data presented was 6.8%.
Come see us. We can not only provide you with highly successful care in an extremely personal, sensitive, and cost-effective manner, we can provide you with the most honest and accurate prediction of your chances of IVF success available.