Quality of information about success rates provided on assisted reproductive technology clinic websites in Australia and New Zealand

Abstract

To allow people who consider ART to make informed decisions about treatment they need comprehensive and accurate information about what treatment entails and what the likely outcomes are. As measured by a scoring matrix, most ART clinics had not improved the quality of the information about success rates following the ACCC investigation.

Reporting assisted reproductive technology success rates on Australian and New Zealand fertility clinic websites

“…Most websites report live birth data demarcated into appropriate age‐specific groupings, describe (at least some) details of the population group that contributed to the dataset, and communicate that the chance of success will vary according to personal circumstances. Our observations support recent audits by the Victorian Assisted Reproductive Treatment Authority (VARTA), who used a points‐scoring system based on similar assessment criteria to those applied here, and found the mean website quality score was higher when assessed in 2018 compared to 2016/2017 . Interestingly, we identified fewer websites willing to report their success rates (20 websites) compared to those included in the 2016/2017 audit (32/29 websites respectively) or the 2018 audit (24 websites), suggesting that some clinics have decided not to report success rates.…”

“…Our observations support recent audits by the Victorian Assisted Reproductive Treatment Authority (VARTA), who used a points-scoring system based on similar assessment criteria to those applied here, and found the mean website quality score was higher when assessed in 2018 20 compared to 2016/2017. 21 Interestingly, we identified fewer websites willing to report their success rates (20 websites) compared to those included in the 2016/2017 audit (32/29 websites respectively) 21 or the 2018 audit (24 websites), 22 suggesting that some clinics have decided not to report success rates. We also note that some websites acknowledged that success rates can be misleading, or requested that the patient contact the clinic to discuss their Perhaps this is not surprising as there may be commercial reasons for not providing the number of embryo transfer cycles performed by their clinic.…”

“…To improve reporting of pregnancy outcomes by fertility clinics, the Reproductive Technology Accreditation Committee (RTAC) (a subcommittee of the Fertility Society of Australia (FSA)) published best practice guidelines for acceptable success rate advertising in 2017 . However, a 2016/2017 audit of Australian and NZ fertility websites concluded that transparency in advertising success rates did not improved significantly after the guidelines were published, with many clinic websites failing to sufficiently explain how success rates were calculated …”

“…19,20 However, a 2016/2017 audit of Australian and NZ fertility websites concluded that transparency in advertising success rates did not improved significantly after the guidelines were published, with many clinic websites failing to sufficiently explain how success rates were calculated. 21,22 Other inherent difficulties in comparing self-reported success rates between fertility clinics have not yet been addressed. For example, comparisons may be meaningless if clinics are using different measures of success, as has been observed in an audit of websites published by fertility clinics in the UK.…”

Single embryo transfer with frozen transfer of all remaining embryos without further embryonic testing should be the standard of care in IVF

“…Consequently, embryo selection techniques will never result in superior live birth rates if the outcome of all embryos resulting from one stimulation is assessed over an appropriate time frame. Rather than thinking of IVF as a ‘one‐off’ procedure, we should consider it as a series of treatments and portray the results similarly …”