The Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology has released the latest data on assisted reproductive technologies (ART) in the United States. The release consists of preliminary data from cycles done in 2015 and final data from 2014 cycles.
With the preliminary 2015 data in, they can definitively say that more than one million babies have been born from assisted reproductive technology procedures done in the United States since SART and ASRM started to collect ART data with cycle year 1985.
For 2015, 371 SART member clinics reported 209,336 treatment cycles, resulting in the birth of 67,818 babies.
Positive trends in treatment and outcomes continued in 2015, with 34.5% of all cycles that progressed to embryo transfer transferring a single embryo, compared to 27.2% in 2014. Fewer embryos transferred leads to lower incidence of multiple birth: 80.5% of babies born from 2015 cycles were singletons; 19.1% twins; and fewer than one-half of one percent were triplets (or higher order).
Other trends were noted, as well. With improvements in egg freezing techniques, the use of frozen donor eggs has increased. In 2014, 2886 recipient cycle starts used frozen donor eggs; in 2015, this number rose to 3215. The number of donor embryo cycles also increased to 1428 in 2015 from 1184 in 2014. RPMG has always been very conservative in the number of embryos transferred and an early adopter of the single embryo transfer.
Reproductive Partners and its preceding clinics have reported to the SART/CDC reporting system since its inception. In 2014 the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology (SART) completely re-designed their report and require us to present our data only in their format. They say they did this to provide patients with outcomes that reflect changes in the way infertility is treated through IVF. In recent years, there has been increased emphasis on embryo cryopreservation, genetic testing, and single embryo transfer that was not adequately captured by the old reporting system. This report captures the treatment burden to the patient (the number of cycles) as well as the best outcome (delivery of a healthy child) by tracking outcomes over time for an individual, accounting for both fresh and frozen embryo transfers.
Please review our 2014 final results at Our Success Rates page or visit the SART website to review our 2014 Final Report. The 2015 has very incomplete data as when the report was released all of the transfer cycles had not been completed.