IVF success rates: birthrate data on every Victorian IVF clinic revealed

The latest data on IVF clinics has been released, as an industry expert reveals how to choose the best clinic for you.

Prospective parents can see the latest results from Victoria’s IVF clinics, with new data revealing exactly how many treatments led to a baby.

The latest dataset shows 45.4 per cent of egg retrieval cycles carried out across Australia resulted in the woman aged under 35-years having a baby.

Across Victorian IVF clinics the rates vary from 57.6 per cent at Ballarat IVF to 16.1 per cent at Monash IVF Sale.

For women aged 35 to 42-years-old, the national rate fell to 24.6 per cent.

Across Victoria the rate ranged from 34.6 per cent at Monash IVF Geelong to 17.9 per cent at IVF Sale.

The data is collected under a federal initiative designed to improve transparency in the fertility industry in which the University of New South Wales’ National Perinatal Epidemiology and Statistics Unit measures fertility clinics across the nation by the same standards.

The latest dataset is based on 2019-20 data and was released by the government’s Your IVF Success website this week.

National Perinatal Epidemiology and Statistics Unit director Professor Georgina Chambers cautioned that while the figures help inform patients, clinics should not be compared on one measure alone.

“There’s a number of reasons why one clinic might have a different success rate to another, and they can relate to things like the type of patients they treat,” she said.

“This government funded website is a great tool for people to get an estimate of their own individualised chance of IVF success as well as getting a range of success rate measures for individual IVF clinics across Australia … but this website is best discussed in consultation with a fertility specialist.”

Potential IVF users are urged to take a holistic approach at reviewing data from IVF clinics.

The data set contains numerous statistics about IVF clinics including results by embryo transfer, treatment attempt and complete egg retrieval cycle.

Clinics have different figures for different measures because multiple eggs may be collected in one retrieval cycle, meaning a woman has multiple chances to transfer an embryo per cycle.

Prof Chambers said presenting IVF success rates was “very complicated” because there were ways to analyse IVF data and many factors contribute to success rates.

She noted that ranking clinics by individual measures wasn’t in the best interest of patients and could incentivise poor practice.

But she said births per complete egg retrieval cycle was the best “headline” indicator for people to look at.

“It’s important to look at an IVF cycle holistically, and not just focus on every embryo transfer that results from an egg retrieval,” she said.

“The reason that’s important is the ovarian stimulation and egg retrieval is the most arduous part, medically and financially, of the IVF cycle, and an egg retrieval can result in more than one embryo transfer and more than one chance of pregnancy.

“It also helps men and women not focus on every individual embryo transfer.”

Professor Chambers encouraged prospective patients to take into account the other information in the dataset, which details important differences between clinic’s demographics and services.

Factors that can impact a clinic’s success rate include the percentage of cycles cancelled before egg retrieval, treatment options and whether the patient has had kids before or used IVF.

Women who are first time IVF patients, or have previously given birth, on average have a better chance of IVF success.

This means clinics that treat more patients in this category may have slightly higher success rates, than a clinic offering the exact same treatment to a different patient demographic.

Cancelled cycles can also influence the figures, as success rates do not include cycles that were cancelled before the eggs could be retrieved, while higher rates of preimplantation genetic tests may also “make the success rates for a clinic appear a little higher”.

Originally published as IVF success rates: birthrate data on every Victorian IVF clinic revealed