Infertility Support Group

In vitro fertilization is one of the most common and utilized ways of treating conception problems. This support group is dedicated to those beginning their journey with IVF and needing support. Join the community and share your experiences, advice, and story with people going through similar challenges starting a family.

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IVF/IUI stats

deleted_user
deleted_user
I read this article on this web site and found it very interesting. Here is part of it:

Enrich the patient population with the best patients. In the words of a famous European infertility expert, "The patients who are easiest to get pregnant get pregnant most easily". Since individual IVF couples have pregnancy likelihoods varying enormously, a key is to enrich the statistically reported population with the better patients, and to discourage, reject, or reclassify the worse. This is accomplished by a combination of positive and negative selection.

I found the rest of this article on this web site.


http://www.givf.com/library/whatisyoursuccessrate1.cfm


I know what they are talking about because there seems to be no set average success rate for IVF and IUI. It seems that it is based on what the doctors success rate is.
deleted_user
deleted_user
Really interesting article. Thanks for posting it.
deleted_user
deleted_user
Okay. I have seen this article before. I have a HUGE problem with their arguments. The basic idea is that they think that anybody who walks in their door should be offered fertility treatments, and if you don't, or select patients who are likely to be successful, without offering the same procedures to the higher risk patients, that you are somehow trying to manipulate your data to making you look better than another clinic. He generates a table of success rates with two hypothetical approaches, and I think the names he gives these "physicians" demonstrate his bias immediately: "Dr Helpall" and "Dr. Lookgood".

Dr. Helpall takes all comers, doesn't refuse patients, treats everyone with IVF, almost never cancels cycles, etc. Dr. Lookgood sees only 80 of 100 patients that he screens, accepts on 60 patients into the IVF program, starts only 50 patients immediately on cycles, cancels 15 of those cycles, and so only goes to egg retrieval on 35 of the original 100. He then does successful transfers in 33 of the 35, and gets 11 pregnancies.

Dr. Helpall, on the other hand, sees 96 of the 100 patients, accepts 94, starts *everyone* immediately on protocols, cancels only 4 of the 94 cycles, and gets 80 of the 90 to transfer. THE PROBLEM is that of the *90* patients who go through a complete IVF cycle, only *12* end up with successful pregnancies. So Dr. Helpall (I like to call him "Dr. Send-My-Kids-to-College-and-Buy-My-Mercedes") has put an additional *55* patients (90 vs 35) through a complete IVF cycle for ONE additional successful pregnancy. Those odds are HORRIBLE. That is a less than 2% chance of pregnancy. And do you think that he tells those high-risk patients that they have a less than 2% chance of taking home a baby? No, he will quote the overall pregnancy rate of 12%.

What Dr. Lookgood is doing is NOT just trying to look good. He is trying to figure out WHICH patients will benefit from the procedure and actually have a reasonable chance of success if they go through the program. NOT EVERYONE will be a good candidate for IVF, and in a case like this, where most of us are paying $15K to $20K per cycle, I think that is unconscionable.

Just my two cents. Statistics lie. It all depends on interpretation.
deleted_user
deleted_user
By the way, I emailed this clinic asking them to explain this very idea -- that selection is beneficial financially to keep people from wasting their money when it won't work -- and never received a reply despite my specifically asking them to respond.
deleted_user
deleted_user
Good point, Susan. You do have to be careful with statistics.
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