Total numbers of embryos lost during in-vitro fertilization

Mary Dianke Zhao 1, Juliana Kathleen Upchurch 2 and Robert Allen Malkin 3, *

1 International Research Institute of North Carolina, 500 Westover Drive, Sanford, NC 27330, United States.
2 New York University School of Global Public Health, 708 Broadway New York, NY 10003, United States.
3 Biomedical Engineering, Duke University, 101 Science Drive, Durham, NC 27708, United States.
 
Research Article
World Journal of Biology Pharmacy and Health Sciences, 2024, 19(03), 603–611.
Article DOI: 10.30574/wjbphs.2024.19.3.0666
Publication history: 
Received on 08 August 2024; revised on 24 September 2024; accepted on 27 September 2024
 
Abstract: 
The objective of this study is to investigate the number of lost, viable embryos during Assisted Reproductive Treatments (ART), particularly in-vitro fertilization (IVF). The polarizing debate defining the beginning of human life presents the possibility of criminality associated with ART. Data from the CDC’s ART database spanning 1996-2020 was categorized into donor and non-donor, frozen and fresh, by state and by maternal age. In total, there were 2.6 million lost viable embryos across the years studied, making this a leading cause of death in the US, if life is legally determined to begin at conception. We defined viable as any embryo that a trained technician cleared for transfer to a woman’s uterus. There was considerable variation in embryo loss rates across states. Fourteen states had statistically significantly higher loss rates than average, while 27 states had significantly lower (p<0.05). A stricter legal definition of personhood did not correlate with higher rates of lost embryos in that state. There were also notable discrepancies in loss rates across individual clinics for the same given year, with some clinics having a 0% loss rate and others nearing 100%. Clinic-by-clinic variation indicates that there are significant differences in technique and experience and that traveling across state lines to receive reproductive healthcare may be driven by both legal and clinical outcomes.
 
Keywords: 
Assisted Reproductive Treatments (ART); In Vitro Fertilization (IVF); Embryos; personhood; State variation; Clinical variation
 
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Copyright information: 
Copyright © 2024 Author(s) retain the copyright of this article. This article is published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Liscense 4.0