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Impact of elective single embryo transfer on the twin pregnancy rate
A Tiitinen1, L Unkila-Kallio, M Halttunen
1Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Helsinki University Central Hospital, P.O.Box 140, 00029 HUS, Finland. aila.tittinen@hus.fi
Background:
It is unclear how the implementation of elective single embryo transfer in clinical practice would affect clinical pregnancy and delivery rates and multiple birth rates.
Methods:
This retrospective study analysed 1871 IVF/ICSI cycles carried out from 1997 to 2001 in the IVF programme of a single university infertility clinic.
Results:
The number of elective single embryo transfers increased from 11 to 56%. At the same time the clinical pregnancy rate was relatively stable; mean 34.0% (range 28-42). The number of embryos per embryo transfer decreased from 1.8 to 1.3. The multiple pregnancy and delivery rates dropped markedly from 25 to 7.5% and from 25 to 5% respectively.
Conclusions:
An elective single embryo transfer programme can be adopted in daily practice that decreases the twinning rate to <10% and does not affect the overall pregnancy rate.