EMORY REPRODUCTIVE MEDICINE AND FERTILITY CENTER CELEBRATES HIGH PREGNANCY RATE

may 20, 1996
Media Contact: Sarah Goodwin at 404/727-5686, e-mail: sgoodwi@emory.edu

With a clinical pregnancy rate of 43 percent in their in vitro fertilization (IVF) program, fertility specialists at the Emory Center for Reproductive Medicine and Fertility have cause for celebration. Opened in September of 1994, the center performed 106 egg retrievals through the end of 1995. Forty-one percent of these retrievals have led to a live birth or a pregnancy that is now beyond five months of gestation. IVF success rates in North America were last reported for 1993 by the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology as 23 percent clinical pregnancy rate per egg retrieval and 19 percent live birth rate per egg retrieval,* according to center director Carolyn Kaplan, M.D. "The combination of board-certified reproductive endocrinologists, dedicated nurses and the skill of our embryologists has contributed to this impressive success," Dr. Kaplan says. Dr. Ana Murphy, director of the Division of Reproductive Endocrinology, Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics at the Emory University School of Medicine, is particularly pleased with center's success using intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) to overcome severe male factor infertility. "In the majority of couples who have been treated with ICSI and are who are now expecting a baby, even conventional IVF technology would have failed in the past to make them conceive," Dr. Murphy says. Couples visiting centers like EmoryÍs usually have already spent years trying to conceive. They present with a host of problems affecting one or both partners, and so must be offered a host of treatments for optimizing conception. Treatments may range from advising couples to have intercourse more frequently when the female partner is ovulating, prescribing fertility drugs, or suggesting delicate procedures such as IVF, gamete or zygote intrafallopian transfer (GIFT or ZIFT), or micromanipulation. * PREGNANCY RATES The success of IVF procedures can be described in a number of ways. It is important that the method of arriving at a pregnancy rate value is clearly defined so that the information is not misleading or deceptive. A clinical pregnancy refers to the implantation of an embryo and development to a stage where a gestational sac can be seen by ultrasound. Emory's clinical pregnancy rate was determined by dividing the number of clinical pregnancies produced by the total number of egg retrievals attempted (no egg retrievals were excluded from the data set). Emory's ongoing pregnancy rate was calculated from the same data set by dividing the number of pregnancies that have continued beyond five months of gestation by the total number of egg retrievals attempted. The comparative data for clinical pregnancy rates in North America in 1993 as reported by the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology is the most recent data available. (Editors/Producers: Doctors, patients and babies are available for photographs/ interviews. Striking through- the-microscope b/w photos available of sperm being harvested in glass needles and "injected" individually into mature eggs and of fertilized eggs (zygotes). VHS-quality video of similar images is available, and microscopes may be fitted with broadcast-type cameras. Contact: Sarah Goodwin, 404/727-3366.)

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