New method may help predict IVF success: study

By Julie Steenhuysen

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Just four factors can predict with 70 percent accuracy whether a woman will become pregnant through "test-tube" baby technology known as in vitro fertilization, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday.

In vitro fertilization, or IVF, is a costly treatment that aims to increase a woman's chances of becoming pregnant but in the United States it is successful only 18 to 45 percent of the time, according to the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology.

Dr. Mylene Yao of Stanford University in California said she hoped that with more testing the method might be useful to couples undergoing the expensive treatment.

"People make decisions based on probability," Yao said in a statement. "At that point, it's really important to give a more accurate prediction."

IVF involves surgically removing eggs from a woman's ovaries and combining them with sperm in the lab. Doctors then pick the best embryos -- typically one or two -- and implant them in a woman's uterus.

Yao's team wanted to find out what factors most influenced the chances of a woman becoming pregnant using this method.

They analyzed data from 665 IVF cycles performed at Stanford in 2005, looking at 30 variables including patient characteristics, diagnoses, treatment methods, and characteristics of the embryo.

Reporting in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS One, they said they matched these up with women who had become pregnant.  Continued...