The SART 2010 US IVF clinic statistics have been released. As I talked about in this post, just statistics alone are not the only thing to consider, but it does give us just one more piece of data to throw into our decision machines. Of course, the US is the only country I know of that uses this reporting mechanism, so only US clinics are represented in this list.
Here are a few items of note from these latest results:
For own egg IVF (non-donor), only one clinic showed up in the top 5 clinics (by birth rate) for 3 age groups: under 35, 35 – 37 and 38 – 40. No surprise, it was CCRM (aka Colorado Center for Reproductive Medicine). A whole new slate makes up the top 5 in the 41 – 42 age group. That emphasizes the importance of reviewing clinics based on the success rates and number of cycles they do with patients in YOUR age group.
For fresh donor egg treatments, there were a few surprises – with two of the top and most highly respected clinics reporting 2010 live birth rates almost 10% lower than in 2009. Surprising!
The top five clinics for donor eggs in 2010 purely based on live birth rates are:
#1 Advanced Fertility Center of Chicago (Dr. Sherbahn) – 76 cycles 81% live birth rate (up from 74% in 2009)
#2 Fertility Center of Las Vegas (Shaprio) – 27 cycles, 81.5% live birth rate
#3 Center of Reproductive Medicine in Texas – 33 cycles, 78.8% live birth rate
#4 Houston IVF – 36 cycles, 77.8% live birth rate
#5 Bethesda Center – Cincinnati – 31 cycles, 77.4% live birth rate
However, I found it interesting that ONLY the first clinic of the top five listed did more than 40 fresh donor egg cycles, so that has to be factored in as well. For me, the high birth rates mean more as they are able to consistently get those with higher numbers of cycles.
In comparison of the higher volume DE clinics:
#6 San Diego Fertility Center – 101 DE cycles and 77.2% live birth rate (down from 85% in 2009)
#9 CCRM – 157 DE cycles and 76.4% live birth rate (up from 70.6% in 2009)
#11 Pacific NW Fertility – 53 DE cycles and 75.5% live birth rate (up from 73.1 in 2009)
#13 Oregon Reproductive Medicine – 111 cycles and 73% live birth rate (down from 82.2% in 2009)
Another interesting thing I found in this data is that only 4 of the top US 25 clinics perform more than 100 fresh donor egg cycles per year. By contrast, many of the most popular Czech or other European clinics are routinely doing several hundred or more cycles per year and have for the past several years. Perhaps this can be directly linked to the tremendous cost difference between donor egg IVF treatments in the United States vs. Europe.
“By contrast, many of the most popular Czech or other European clinics are routinely doing several hundred or more cycles per year and have for the past several years”
Can you comment on their comparative success rates?
Just as here in the US, it really depends on the clinic. The Czech clinics with higher success rates generally have clinical pregnancy (meaning a pregnancy with a heartbeat) rates of around 55 – 65%.