[Clinical reports on IVF cycle rank--reliability and validity]

Accurate clinical reports of in vitro fertilization cycle rank (IVF-CR] are important because of their predictive value of treatment success--clinical pregnancy. This parameter, therefore, facilitates decision-making on both individual and population levels. The District of Haifa and Western GaLilee currently enrolls about 700,000 insured people, and provides hundreds of IVF cycles (pick-ups and frozen-thawed) at a cost of millions of shekels each year. Hence, accurate reports of IVF cycle rank is extremely important in order to ensure that public funds are actually directed to couples who may benefit from them.

The study objective was to evaluate the accuracy of IVF units' reports of IVF-CR.

Reports of IVF-CR from local IVF units were correlated with administrative data. Couples undergoing IVF treatments during one month were included in the study.

A total number of 108 IVF cycle treatments were reported. Accurate IVF-CR was reported for 29 patients (27%), "too high" for 30 patients (28%), and "too low" for 10 (9%). For 39 patients (36%) data was missing.

CLinicaL reports of IVF-CR are currently accurate in less than a third of the cases. It is recommended that national regulatory bodies should issue compulsory guidelines in relation to recording and reporting of IVF-CR.