Success Rates

Couples trying to have a child are tired of empty promises and talk. You don't have to take our word for the fertility services we provide. Below are our success rates for 2008-2010. This information is based on stringent criteria. Our success rates are further proof of our infertility expertise. Click on any year to view past success rates. You'll need a PDF file reader. Go to www.adobe.com for your free download.

Annual Success Rate Reports

Annual success rate reports aren't final until all pregnancy outcomes for the year are known. It can take up to nine months into the next year for pregnancies completed from cycles started at the end of the year. Next, you'll learn how we present our success rate reports.

Presenting Successful Rate Reports

We use the standardized method according to the Society of Assisted Reproductive Technologies (SART). They're the statistical record keeper of ART success rates under the American Society of Reproductive Medicine.

SART understands success rates from different clinics can't be compared. SART states, "A comparison of clinic success rates may not be meaningful, because patient medical characteristics and treatment approaches vary from clinic to clinic."

Every fertility clinic has their treatment programs and options. Some do exclude patients based on their age or type of infertility. This practice inflates their success rates. It doesn't give an accurate picture of how effective their infertility treatments are. At the Gyft Clinic we don't exclude patients based on their age or type of infertility. You'll success rates that aren't tainted in any way.

Interpreting Success Rates

Here you'll learn how to interpret our success rate reports. You'll view reports published by SART. All reports are from previous years. When you view the reports check the categorizing variable. You'll see age is the only categorizing variable used to determine the success of an In-Vitro Fertilization (IVF) cycle. There are many things that can categorize success rates.

Type of infertility
Severity of infertility
Number of embryos transferred
Quality of embryos transferred
Number of follicles produced
Preparedness of the uterine lining
Ethnicity
Weight

Every infertility client has different factors causing problems with getting pregnant. It's nearly impossible to nail down a precise percentage of success for any couple. We make the data easier to understand. We do this by grouping all the variables into a large group of clients figuring the IVF success rates.

We assess the chance of pregnancy for couples based on age. Age is the most concrete factor in predicting infertility. The data includes clients with severe and mild infertility problems. Your chance of getting pregnant may be better or worse than "averaged" rates in our success rate report. This will depend on your specific situation.

Program Profile

You will see the Program Profile first. It summarizes the characteristics of our ART services. We're a member of The Society of Assisted Reproductive Technologies. We offer ART services to single and married women. The Gyft Clinic supports the use of surrogates in ART if necessary. We haven't had an example of donor eggs being shared between recipients. One reason is because couples buying donor eggs want every available egg to increase their chances of getting pregnant.

Type of ART Used

The "Type of ART Used" section covers IVF techniques we use. Approximately 1/3 of our IVF cases involve the use of ICSI. This is usually due to male factor infertility. GIFT and ZIFT procedures were used in the past. They had better success rates in certain cases. But they've been replaced by current IVF methods. ZIFT and GIFT procedures are rarely practiced in the U.S. The ART Patient Diagnosis block shows the types of infertility problems we treat, using IVF.

Success Rates Data

The largest block of data describes the cycles using fresh embryos. In a smaller section we describe embryos that are thawed and transferred. Our data is broken into four age groups. These include less than 35, 35-37, 38-40 and greater than 40 years of age

Pregnancies per Cycle

A common question from female clients is, "What are my chances of getting pregnant once I start an IVF cycle? This question is answered in "Pregnancies per Cycle". Here's the definition of a pregnancy. Having an initial positive serum pregnancy test, followed by an ultra-sound confirmed presence of an intrauterine gestational sac.

Another question females have is, "What are my chances of delivering a healthy baby once I start an IVF cycle?" The number you see differs from the number in the column above. This is because not all established pregnancies result in a live birth. Why? Miscarriages can happen.

It can be hard to determine one client's miscarriage rate over another. Yet a woman who believes she is at less risk for miscarriage may have a live birth rate closer to the pregnancies per cycle rate. But a woman who believes she is at higher risk for miscarriage may a lower live birth rate.

We keep track of the live births per retrieval and per transfer. This is because not all clients starting a cycle get as far as the retrieval and embryo transfer. There are more starts than retrievals, and more retrievals than transfers. As a result, the live birth rate rises with each step of the treatment process.

In recent years the difference between live births per retrieval rate and live births per transfer rate has been small. This difference happens, because nearly 100% of our clients having a retrieval will have an embryo transfer. In nearly all situations we're able to get fertilization and embryonic development. Doing this boosts the confidence of clients in our fertility programs.

There's a difference between per cycle rates and per retrieval rates. It's called the "cancellation rate". Cancellations are cycles that are started, but stopped. Cancellations happen at your doctor's discretion before egg retrieval. At the beginning of the process a woman takes medication and starts being monitored. Sometimes she may fail to respond or not respond well enough to continue the cycle. Your physician may stop the cycle if they believe a better outcome can be reached.

Remember the big cost of IVF expense is in medications and processes following and including egg retrieval. It's sometimes in your best interests to cancel a cycle before retrieval. If the doctor says your current cycle won't have a good outcome, you'll have another option. You can put your money towards another cycle. Cancellations increases along with increasing age of a woman.

Younger women less than 35: 1 in every 20 cycles starts and is canceled
Women 40+: 1 in every 7-8 cycles starts and is canceled

Embryo Transfer Section

This section shows the average number of embryos transferred per patient. Check the "Embryo Transfer" section above. It explains the rationale for determining the number of embryos to transfer. The final line shows the percentage of pregnancies resulting in a multiple pregnancy. At the Gyft Clinic you can expect a twin pregnancy about once in every 4 pregnancies. Triplet pregnancies happen about once in every 15 pregnancies. Multiple pregnancies are more common in younger the female clients.

Cycles Using Donor Eggs

This is the last section. It describes outcomes of all IVF cycles in where donor eggs were used. You'll notice most donor egg cycles happen in the 40+ age group. This happens for a few reasons. First women in this age group are more likely to be poor responders. Second, they have inadequate numbers of eggs in their ovarian reserves. Finally they may have inferior quality eggs in their reserves.

Using donor eggs allows a woman to increase her odds of becoming pregnant. She gets a higher number and better quality egg, than she could produce on her own. Donor egg cycles account for most of the pregnancies in the over 40 age group.

We hope you're able to read and understand the data in our success rate reports. Hopefully you'll find the information encouraging. We're proud of our consistent success rates. And we're more proud of the joy we've helped couples experience.

The Gyft Clinic launches and maintains the latest infertility treatment options. We also maintain high quality control procedures. Being committed to this mission helps us improve success rates for our clients.

Contact the Gyft Clinic for affordable fertility and gynecology services. Schedule an appointment at 253-777-1964.