Researchers Develop System To Predict IVF Success

Reseachers at Stanford Univesity examined 665 IVF cycles performed at Stanford in 2005. They looked at thirty different variables (including patient characteristics, clinical diagnoses, treatment protocol and embryo characteristics) to determine which variables were the most important in predicting IVF success.

The researchers found that these four factors: total number of embryos, number of eight-cell embryos, percentage of embryos that stopped dividing and would die, and the woman's follicle-stimulating hormone level, a measurement that estimates ovarian function- were most important in determining a woman's chance of becoming pregnant. When they looked at these four factors together they were seventy percent accurate in predicting whether the current IVF cycle would result in a pregnancy . They also found that all four of these measures were more important in predicting success than looking at the quality of any single embryo. A patient could have a high quality embryo but if she produced a low number of embryos for example her chance of success could actually be quite low.

Although this news is not surprising to most physicians, this is the first time it has been studied scientifically. The researchers are now conducting a follow up study with a much larger patient population (four years of data) and will use live birth rather than a positive pregnancy test, as the outcome.