What Percentage of Frozen Embryo Transfers Work
We want to help you conceive and have a healthy baby and we know that two of the most important things you'll be researching when choosing a fertility clinic is their success rates and what other people's experiences have been. We're delighted to share our success rates and others' stories with you.
There are a number of ways to define your chance of a successful treatment outcome. Some websites present results that indicate your chance of achieving a positive pregnancy test or your chance of achieving a pregnancy that is confirmed at a 7 week scan (a clinical pregnancy). Although these results are important, we at Cambridge IVF prefer to present data on our live birth rates. This means the results we present are for patients that have delivered a baby. We have compared our data to the national average to give you a good idea of what is 'normal' in the UK and how we compare to other centres.
The most effective way to compare clinics is via the HFEA Choose a Fertility Clinic service via their website. As the regulator of the UK fertility industry the HFEA present data in a consistent and meaningful way allowing you to compare the clinics in your region both on treatment outcomes and also patient satisfaction.
Measuring your chance of successful treatment
There are a number of ways to measure your chances of success. We can assess the likelihood of each individual embryo leading to the birth of a baby (live births per embryo transferred) or how likely you are to take home a baby after your treatment cycle has started (live births per cycle started).
Most fertility experts believe that live births per embryo transferred is a more meaningful measure of success because:
It takes into account how many embryos are being transferred during treatment to achieve the live birth. Patients may have one, two or in rare circumstances three embryos transferred.
Live births per cycle started does not take into account that some cycles are cancelled before the transfer can take place. Cancelled cycles have no chance of resulting in a baby. Cancellation of cycles is patient specific and depends largely on the diagnosis of the patients undergoing treatment.
Live birth rates per embryo transferred following fresh treatment (IVF/ICSI)
Our IVF experience dates back to 1994 and we achieve excellent levels of success. Cambridge IVF are specialists in cryopreservation and as such recommend elective freezing of good quality embryos where this is possible. This preference for frozen embryo transfer is reflected in the success rates below. Our fresh rates are lower in some age groups as this sub-population of patients include a higher proportion of poor prognosis patients who did not generate embryos which were of suitable quality for cryopreservation and subsequent elective frozen embryo transfer.
For an individualised discussion about your chances of success following treatment please contact us, we would be very happy to provide you with additional supporting information.
Live birth rates per embryo transferred following frozen embryo transfer
It is incredibly important to take into account your chance of having a baby following a frozen embryo transfer. Today it is more common than ever to have one embryo transferred following fresh IVF treatment. If you have additional good quality embryos remaining we can freeze them for transfer at a later date. Wherever you have your treatment, we strongly advise you to choose a clinic with an effective freezing system and high frozen embryo transfer success rates as success rates for frozen transfers vary significantly from clinic to clinic.
It's also important to be aware that research has shown that in certain patient groups cumulative pregnancy rates from two consecutive cycles of single embryo transfer are higher than rates achieved from transferring two embryos in one cycle. This means that with an effective freezing programme, such as ours at Cambridge IVF, it is possible to achieve very good success rates safely, without putting patients at high risk of multiple pregnancy. For more information, please refer to the most recent published data from the HFEA, the 2018 Trends and Figures report published in June 2020 https://www.hfea.gov.uk/media/3158/fertility-treatment-2018-trends-and-figures.pdf
How many embryos should I have transferred?
The single biggest risk of fertility treatment is multiple pregnancy. At Cambridge IVF we aim to transfer embryos one at a time in all cases where the risk of a multiple pregnancy is high. By recommending elective single embryo transfer (eSET) to this high risk group of patients we are able to keep our multiple pregnancy rates as low as possible without compromising the chances of success. The birth of a single, healthy baby is the safest outcome from IVF treatment.
Treatment options considered as 'add-ons' by the HFEA
At Cambridge IVF our policy is to offer you evidence-based medicine. This means that the treatments that we offer are based either upon published evidence from other clinics or our own in house data analyses. Where we offer treatment add-ons we only charge an additional fee for these where it is necessary for us to do so and we can provide you with data to support the benefit that the add on will provide to you.
The HFEA have provided a traffic light system to explain to you which add-ons are of more benefit than others. This information is provided to complement the information provided by Cambridge IVF to assist you in deciding if the add on you are considering is right for you.
For more information about treatment add-ons please visit the relevant section of the HFEA Website.
Looking for more information?
We hope you have found this information useful. If you require more advice on our success rates or data which is more tailored to you as an individual, please contact us for an informal discussion at enquiries@cambridgeivf.org.uk or on 01223 349010 .
What Percentage of Frozen Embryo Transfers Work
Source: https://www.cambridge-ivf.org.uk/success-rates/