Statistics show majority of ART in US is in five states

Dr Kirsty Horsey

Progress Educational Trust

11 September 2003

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[BioNews, London] A study undertaken by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows that almost half of all assisted reproductive technology (ART) procedures performed in the US take place in just five states. Of 99,629 ARTs (defined as fertility treatments in which both eggs and sperm are handled in a laboratory) performed in the year 2000, 45,000 were performed in California, New Jersey, Illinois, Florida and Texas.

CDC began collecting data on ARTs in the US in 1996. Since they began, the report says, the number of procedures performed each year has increased by 54 per cent. There are more than 400 ART centres across the United States and, of these, California hosts 56. According to the CDC report, California has twice the number of clinics than any of the other 49 states. Four states have no ART centre at all: Alaska, Maine, Montana and Wyoming.

The study also shows that the total amount of ART procedures used resulted in 25,228 live births. In total, this amounted to the birth of 35,025 children as more than half of the pregnancies resulted in multiple births. Approximately 44 per cent of the children conceived were twins and nine per cent were triplets or from higher order pregnancies.

Nationally, 76 per cent of ART treatments used freshly fertilised embryos using the patient's own egg, compared to 13 per cent using thawed embryos that had been in frozen storage, eight per cent using fresh embryos created from donor eggs and three per cent using thawed embryos created using donor eggs.

Reproduced with permission from BioNews, an email and online sources of news, information and comment on assisted reproduction and genetics.