Related Experiment Videos
Treatment of patients with long-standing unexplained subfertility with in vitro fertilization
P F Donderwinkel1, H van der Vaart, V M Wolters
1Division of Reproductive Medicine, University Hospital Groningen, The Netherlands. p.f.j.donderwinkel@oprit.rug.nl
Objective:
To evaluate whether IVF is an effective treatment for long-standing unexplained subfertility.
Design:
Retrospective cohort study.
Setting:
Tertiary care infertility center in a university hospital.
Patient(S):
Two hundred two couples with unexplained subfertility of 2 years' duration or more who attended the center for their first IVF attempt.
Intervention(S):
Couples were placed on a waiting list for IVF. They received no treatment until IVF was started.
Main Outcome Measure(S):
Pregnancy rate (PR) while on the waiting list and PR after IVF treatment.
Result(S):
Complete data sets were available for 131 couples. Seventeen of 131 women became pregnant while waiting for IVF treatment (PR 0.9% per exposure cycle), whereas 45 of 119 receiving IVF treatment became pregnant (PR 17% per IVF attempt).
Conclusion(S):
IVF treatment has substantial added value over waiting and is an efficient treatment for long-standing unexplained subfertility.