IVF success rates explained – a comprehensive guide for IVF patients

The success rate is related to the age group of the patients and to the number of embryos transferred. So if we have a patient with good prognosis in her first cycle and her age is under 35, then the pregnancy rate is around 50%. The same for the second cycle, when we’re speaking about the single embryo transfer on day 5 – the single blastocyst transfer.

The average number of embryos transferred at our clinic is 1.4. The chance of a multiple birth for a single embryo transfer is to 1.3, as the monogenic twins develop in 1 percent of all single embryo transfers. For a double embryo transfer, there is a chance of 20% to get a twin pregnancy – from 5 pregnant women we expect a twin pregnancy in one of them.

With AMH of 3.85 pmol/l and 30 years of age, I would expect 4 eggs to be retrieved.

Of course, you are only 30 years old so you can have an excellent quality of eggs. So I’ll say, start the treatment as soon as you can. You have a very good chance to achieve a pregnancy, despite a low number of eggs and a low AMH levels, because you would probably get good quality eggs.

In our country, only a single embryo transfer is recommended for gestational surrogate mothers. But maybe you come from a country where it is possible to implant two embryos for a surrogate mother. So you should ask those countries where such practice is allowed.

Yes, we do have scientific data comparing success rates when a male partner has very low sperm count and his female partner is of different age group. We can say that the younger the female partner, the better the fertilisation rate. We can simplify it and say that a young egg can correct some abnormalities resulting from poor sperm quality. But the egg of a female in advanced age does not have such a capacity to improve DNA damage coming from the sperm.

I believe both methods are experimental, they are not a part of routine practice. There have been just a few deliveries reported. I do not have any personal experience and we don’t offer these methods in our clinic.

Unfortunately, most women at the age of 45 have very low AMH level and we don’t recommend any IVF treatment using our eggs anymore. But if your case is different, if your AMH level is really very high, and you can get a good number of embryos retrieved during the stimulation, then you should also consider genetic testing of embryos to eliminate aneuploidies – abnormal chromosome count. And if after the genetic testing of embryos you have at least one embryo with a good chromosomal count, then you can have a very good chance to get pregnant. But I need to add that in most women at the age of 45, despite good AMH level, we don’t identify any single genetically normal embryo. But you might be an exception, I am not familiar with your case.

In general, autism or Asperger’s syndrome or some psychiatric disorders are probably linked to the advanced paternal age. So older males are statistically more likely to get children with autism or similar syndromes. But we don’t know the reason yet. It is probably not related to the egg donation so there might be no difference if you do egg donation or own egg treatment. It is a simple age-related risk, related to the advanced age of the father.

The definition of an old father refers to males who are over 60 or even 70 years of age. A 42-year old is considered a younger father. I would not be worried about a higher risk of autism as compared to the general population.

It’s a difficult question. In our clinic, we always recommend genetic testing of embryos for women at the age of 40. And we hope that, in one or maybe two of those cycles, we will be able to find genetically healthy embryos suitable for the embryo transfer. If we have an embryo with a normal count of chromosomes, then we can have 50-60% success rate. But sometimes we don’t find any healthy embryos and we aren’t able to proceed with the embryo transfer. But if you think of 3 cycles and if we get, let’s say, 10 eggs for each cycle, then I hope that there will be at least one good embryo available among them.

I believe that in case of a double donation there is no medical reason to perform PGT-A. Generally, both egg donor and male donor must be young. But of course, it depends on the local practice and legislation of each country. It might be different.

I’m afraid this question should be addressed to a pediatrician or a psychiatrist. This is not a part of IVF treatment. You should seek for statistical data regarding age groups of fathers. I am not the right person to answer this question.

Yes, we do offer embryo adoption in our clinic. I don’t know what you mean by ‘many embryos’. We have a substantial number of embryos to choose from and to match to you according to your phenotype before embryo adoption.

I don’t see any reason to perform HCG before egg donation. I don’t understand the reason to do the investigation and I do agree with you that the procedure might be uncomfortable and sometimes a little bit painful – not very painful, in fact. I don’t think it’s necessary to be performed.

If the AMH level of the 20-year old donor is average, the dose of stimulation drugs is well decided and the stimulation is performed by a well-qualified specialist, then I’ll expect 15 to 20 eggs to be retrieved. If the sperm of the intended father at the age of 42 is normal, then from those eggs, there might be 15-17 eggs fertilised. It means that we can expect 5-6 embryos to develop further into good quality blastocysts.

As I explained earlier, in our clinic we recommend genetic testing of embryos. So it depends on the results of the genetic testing. It makes sense to store own embryos with normal genetic finding. But sometimes at the age of 42, we don’t have any surplus embryos available for longer storage. On average, we have good luck if we have at least one single embryo with normal genetic findings. And then we don’t have any surplus embryos left.

In egg donation, the legal limit for an egg donor is under 35 years of age. If you mean the recipient, the intended mother, then the legal limit is 49 years of age.

Yes, we are. But as I explained during my presentation, we are facing a lot of difficulties because of the lack of live birth rates reporting. We are facing some delays because it takes our patients a long time to respond to our questions regarding delivery details. There is usually a one-year delay. So I can present now little data on live birth related to treatments performed during 2017. Pregnancy takes 9 months anyway and usually, no one has time to respond one week after delivery. So there is usually one year needed, since the treatment, to have all the details available.

The quality of oocytes is strictly related to the age of the female. So actually the examination of the quality is the birth rate. AMH testing or ultrasound testing can tell you the quantity, how many eggs could be retrieved. But when it comes to quality, there is only criteria and this is the age.