A Revision to "Conception at 40 and Beyond: Does IVF help?"
Conception at 40 and Beyond – Does IVF Help? contained some errors in the table. The following is a reprint of the article with corrections. We all know that fertility declines with female age but what is not certain is how much does in vitro fertilization improve one’s chances of conception if a woman/couple is having problems conceiving on their own? The table below is one I often use when counseling patients 40 and over about their chances of conception with in vitro fertilization. This table represents pregnancy outcomes with PFC patients from January 2003 to March 2008, so most of the viable pregnancies tabulated here have been delivered. One thing to note is that over half of the patients that get a positive beta-hCG result do not end up delivering a baby. This is consistent with the observation that most embryos from women 40 and over have abnormal numbers of chromosomes. Another thing to note is that pregnancies after age 43 are exceedingly rare, even with IVF. We encourage most women over age 43 to strongly consider ovum donation. World-wide, over half the babies born from assisted reproduction to women over age 40 are born from ovum donation, not from their own eggs.
| Stats for Age 40-47 | % of Cycles Cancelled | \#Egg Retrievals (ER) | Total # Positive Pregnancy Test | \# Pregnancies Lost | % Loss | (Viable Pregnancy/Egg Retrievals) | |
| Age | \# Initiated Cycles | (prior to ER, mostly due to poor response) | (percentage of pts with a positive beta hCG) | (includes miscarriages, ectopics and terminations) | (# Lost/ Total Positive beta hCG) | ||
| 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 | 370 354 240 199 125 55 25 4 | 15% 17% 21% 21% 23% 18% 32% 25% | 315 294 190 157 96 45 17 3 | 43% 23% 29% 27% 16% 9% 35% 35% | 79 37 31 26 14 4 5 1 | 58% 54% 55% 61% 93% 100% 83% 100% | 18% 11% 13% 11% 1% 0% 6% 0% |
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