Quite simply, SART stands for Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology. SART is the primary organization of professionals dedicated to the practice of assisted reproductive technologies (ART) in the United States. One of their most important functions is helping patients locate infertility clinics and view national and individual clinic IVF success rates.
Each couple’s chance of a liveborn is variable and individually based on diagnosis. A comparison of clinic success rates may not be meaningful because patient medical history and treatment protocols vary from clinic to clinic. For example, patients should be aware that some clinics define “success” as any positive pregnancy test or any pregnancy, even if miscarried or ectopic. As we’ve discussed before, there are many factors that play into successes. Maternal age and health, egg quality and quantity, sperm quality and count, etc.
It’s important to note that the following statistics as reported to SART include couples whose chance of success is significantly less than the overall program. These situations include severe male factor and women greater than 40 years of age.
The most current public statistics are from 2008. This information can be found on the SART website http://sart.org/.
Below are the tables for Reproductive Resource Center’s 2008 Liveborn Pregnancy rates and 2009 Ongoing Pregnancy rates:
2008 Liveborn Rates Per Embryo Transfer |
Age | Under 35 |
35 – 37 | 38 – 40 | Over 40 |
Donor Egg |
IVF & ICSI |
95/168 (57%) |
26/51 (51%) |
12/25 (48%) |
1/5 (20%) |
33/54 (61%) |
2009 Ongoing Pregnancy Rates Per Embryo Transfer |
Ongoing Pregnancy Rate (per embryo transfer) |
82/143 (57%) |
21/51 (41%) |
9/17 (53%) |
3/3 (100%) |
34/52 (65%) |
“Liveborn rate” is defined as the number of women delivering at least one baby divided by the number of women having an embryo transfer. “Ongoing pregnancy rate” is defined as the number of women either delivering at least one baby or having a continuing viable pregnancy for that year.
These tables were developed from data which were reported to the Society for Assisted Reproduction (SART) and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). You can click here for the SART national data summary.