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Positive Trends in ART Practice Indicate Improved Outcomes for Mothers and Babies

The latest data from SART show that ART usage in the United States is increasing, while the multiple birth rate from ART cycles is decreasing. SART’s Preliminary Clinic Summary Report for 2016 consolidates data from 377 member clinics, performing 242,618 ART cycles, resulting in the births of 71,296 babies.

Positive trends in ART practice have resulted in improved outcomes for mothers and babies. The use of elective single embryo (eSET) transfer increased to 42.36% across all age groups in 2016 from 34.5% in 2015. In 2016, each patient age group showed both increased eSET use and a decrease in average numbers of embryos transferred per cycle from the previous year.

Fewer embryos per transfer led to a reduction in ART multiple births from 2015 to 2016. Of the babies born from 2016 cycles, 84% were singletons, 15.6% were twins, and 0.4% were triplets. These rates improve on 2015 rates, in which 80.5% babies were singletons, 19.1% twins, and 0.4% triplets.

While SART data show that ART is very effective, they also show that a female patient’s age is very important to predicting the ultimate success of a cycle in which she is using her own eggs. Final cumulative outcomes data for 2015 showed that women under age 35 had a 53.9% likelihood per cycle of having a live birth using autologous eggs; this dropped to 3.9% for women over 42. Recipient age was not relevant in donor egg cycles. The average chance of a live birth in any given fresh donor egg cycle was more than 50%, and more than 38% in a frozen donor egg cycle.

SART President, David Seifer, M.D., noted, “The yearly publication of the SART National and Clinic reports reflects our members’ commitment to providing the public with meaningful outcomes data. The improvement in outcomes reflects our members continued striving to provide the best care to their patients.”

For more information, visit www.sart.org.