# Overseas clinics success rates - pure fantasy?



## Jowo (Nov 22, 2012)

According to the UK's independent fertility regulator, the HFEA, my likely success rate for my age is 5-12% with my own eggs or 18-31% with donor eggs (the difference coming from whether fresh or frozen embryos are used). 

This corresponds broadly with an IVF prediction wizard set up my academics that analysed the outcome of 144,000 IVF cycles.

Based on this, I accept I have a 1 in 20 chance with my own eggs or 1 in 3 chance with donor eggs.

However, as I've investigated overseas clinics, I am agog at their published success rates.  For example one claims that their 40-44 age range (too broad a grouping in my opinion because the UK breaks this down into two age groups) has somewhere between a 49% success rate with own eggs or 80% with egg donation.

The HFEA in a very polite way, says to take their statistics with a pinch of salt as they collect them in a different way and clinics in these countries are not necessarily accredited by a competent body.

So how much of a fantasy are overseas clinic success rates and can their alleged higher results be attributed to anything else?


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## dillydolly (Mar 11, 2005)

Hi


The egg donors abroad are a lot younger than the UK donors that's why overseas donor success is higher


Not sure about own egg. I think you have to research on here and see what success are showing up on here rather than take notice of their figures. One clinic said 58% success for me with own eggs but on here they seem to be having very few successes


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## Moragob (Apr 1, 2012)

Hi

I agree with Dillydolly - there is a bigger and younger pool of donors overseas which helps the figures.  It may be worth contacting a couple of clinics you are interested in and asking how they collect/collate the figures  and what they term a success.  At my age I was told by a consultant in the NHS that own egg would be around 5% and Donor egg (in the UK) would be near 50% - which varies from you being told 18-31%.

All I know is that I am one of the lucky ones - one round of Donor egg IVF, 2 embryos transferred and I am 34 weeks pregnant with a singleton.  So I am probably but proof that success is definitely possible.

I wish you luck and success whatever you decide.

Morag


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## Violet66 (Dec 28, 2007)

I think a lot of them do pluck their figures out of the air because - unlike Uk clinics - they don't have to publish them. 

Funny how clinics who DO have to publishe them can rarely offer success rates about 50% for donor eggs - but those who don't can offer 80% !!


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## Jowo (Nov 22, 2012)

I did ask for a more specific breakdown from one clinic for my age range but was told that their success rates are in age groups rather than specific ages!  Also, the consultant  would be able to give me a more specific percentage during the treatment process.

But the previous replies about the age of the donors is very good food for thought - some overseas clinics have very much younger donors than I had realised.

Another overseas clinic gave stats that were in line with UK stats for own eggs and better than the UK average for donor eggs, perhaps because of that younger donor factor that I hadn't considered.


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## Blondie71 (Oct 26, 2011)

Another thing to consider abroad is the number of embryo's transferred back it's not uncommon to have 6 put back when over 40 if available, they would never do that I'm sure in UK? so that ups the odds for success enormously but it's irresponsible IMO as they bandy the word "selective reduction" about after the transfer which is easier said than done when you get that long awaited BFP


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## Lil Elvis (Dec 31, 2009)

I think the real question here is what is classified as 'pregnancy'. In the UK it is seeing a heartbeat whereas overseas it appears to be a positive blood test, and therefore includes biochemical pregnancies, ie early miscarriages. The only important statistic is for live birth - something which overseas clinics seem far more reticent about making available whilst UK clinics DO collate for the HFEA.

Caroline


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## Jowo (Nov 22, 2012)

Lil Elvis said:


> The only important statistic is for live birth - something which overseas clinics seem far more reticent about making available whilst UK clinics DO collate for the HFEA.


The 'live birth' missing statistics is a good observation. Certainly, some of the stats that I've come across described as 'success' rates don't even say what this records. Others say that it's the pregnancy rate. Not all give live births as you say.

I'm still tearing my hair out trying to shortlist a couple of clinics.

On the one hand, there is a clinic that screams out its credentials and insists it has an 85% pregnancy rate with donor eggs but has very little feedback from its clients on this and other fertility forums - it's expensive so you would hope that its because of its investment in staff and its service but who knows if you get what you pay for at this place.

Then there is a clinic that is very popular on this board which also claims a 69-77% success rate with donor eggs for my broad age band but whose service at the clinic and post IVF communication is supposed to be a bit sloppy and where on another forum, the new users are warned off from using them with anecdotal evidence that their success rates are fabricated and that one of their specialist IVF processes has virtually no positive outcomes.

On the other, there is a clinic with very positive reviews on many fertility boards that state a much lower, but perhaps much more reliable statistics of 55% for DE and importantly, they say that this is live births statistics.

Finally, there are clinics in Czech claiming 85% pregnancy rates for donor eggs that have a good reputation on this board but where I would apparently have to feign marriage to get around their laws forbidding treatment to single or gay women.

The allegedly fabulous stats of some of them are actually putting me off because while they state its their experience and technology, fussiness with egg donors and this seems convincing, I simply cannot believe that they can achieve "not less than 85% pregnancy rates", it's just too unreal.

I guess I'm just going through what a lot of the women on the board are going through - trying to be sceptical of claims made on clinic websites while not being too seduced by a few individual successful posters on this forum who champion the clinics they've been to and this leads them to overlook some of the clinics less desirable reputational issues.


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## Lil Elvis (Dec 31, 2009)

Hi Jowo,

Another point worth considering is that the HFEA data isn't very current and quite possibly doesn't truly reflect 'current' rates of success. The raising of the compensation which can be paid to altruistic donors in the UK since April last year, and the resulting increase in media reporting of gamete donation, has greatly increased the number of altruistic donors coming forward. It has literally turned the situation upside down. When I signed on to my clinic's waiting list for egg donation in 2009 I was over the moon that my projected wait to be matched with a donor was 'only' 10 months, whereas now those ladies coming forward to donate through egg-share are currently being told that they are the ones who will have to wait to be matched and they are being quoted timescales of about 6 months. Clinics are now also able to offer options where the recipient can have all the eggs from an altruistic donor when previously they would always have been shared between 2 recipients - this would obviously also affect success rates. In addition there is also the question as to whether you would prefer an ID release donor (realistically only the UK unless you have a bottomless bank account and can afford one from the USA) or are happy to accept anonymity. If donor anonymity isn't an option then overseas 'embryo adoption' is infinitely cheaper than double donation in the UK as I think I read your most recent post and you are single. The UK though has a far lower number of embryos available for adoption.

I'm probably just adding to your decision-making headache, but I think these factors are worth throwing into the process.

Caroline


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## Jowo (Nov 22, 2012)

Lil Elvis said:


> Hi Jowo,
> 
> Another point worth considering is that the HFEA data isn't very current and quite possibly doesn't truly reflect 'current' rates of success. The raising of the compensation which can be paid to altruistic donors in the UK since April last year, and the resulting increase in media reporting of gamete donation, has greatly increased the number of altruistic donors coming forward. .... The UK though has a far lower number of embryos available for adoption.


Thanks again. More food for thought that allows me to think a bit more widely about why the UK and overseas stats are so adrift.

Obviously I know that the HFEA data is always going to be a year or two behind since they want to capture live birth data. I wasn't aware of the change in donors coming forward in the UK that might make the future success rates spike upwards.

When an overseas clinic tells me that they have x3 the success rates that UK clinics definately and truly have, I'd love to believe them but there is still a voice in my head saying 'oh, come on! how on earth can you say that 80-90% of your donor eggs result in pregnancy when so many women have long-term infertility issues and a minority of women will never be able to carry to term'.

One clinic in particular that I admire, and who offers more sober, and thus more believable statistics, often identifies STDs and bacterial issues in UK women because they believe that the UK routinely overlooks these as a cause of infertility and the medical tests here are too weak to pick up certain strains. Also, this clinic often performs pre IVF diagnostics and treatment on the womb and fallopian tubes where they often find issues like scarring, polyps, fibroids, blockages and so on.

They find that some women naturally conceive, or conceive on the first IVF cycle with them after many previous negative results, after they've been given a long course of antibiotics for their hidden chlamydia or womb/tube issues have been sorted. Despite this thorough approach, while they still manage a success rate of twice the UKs rate with Donor Eggs, how on earth do other clinics that just put a woman straight onto an IVF cycle without this kind of pre-treatment investigation then claim much higher rates? If there is a clinic that could guarantee a 90% success rate (pregnancy with DE), then there would naturally be a flood of women to their door whereas it's clear that there is no one major popular clinic so I'm not the only one with big doubts about the claims made by overseas clinics.

So that's the kind of thing that makes my head spin.


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