Assisted reproductive technology (ART) is responsible for an estimated 219,000 to 246,000 babies born each year worldwide according to an international study. The study also finds that the number of ART procedures is growing steadily: in just two years (from 2000 to 2002) ART activity increased by more than 25%.
The study, which is published online today (Thursday 28 May) in Europe's leading reproductive medicine journal Human Reproduction [1], gives figures and estimates for the year 2002, the most recent year for which world figures are available. A total of 1563 clinics in 53 countries provided data for the report, but data were missing from several other countries, mostly in Asia, Africa, Oceania and the West Indies. The authors estimated that these missing countries probably performed between 10-20% of ART procedures, and they took this into account when they calculated the total number of ART babies born worldwide.
Professor Jacques de Mouzon, a specialist in public health at INSERM (Paris, France), led the International Committee for Monitoring Assisted Reproductive Technology (ICMART) that compiled the report. He said: "This is the eighth world report on ART produced by ICMART since 1989, and is useful because, even if it is imperfect, it gives data that can inform debate and decision-making on issues such as availability and the benefits and risks of this important medical practice. It allows us to make comparisons between countries and regions, and to analyse trends by comparing with previous reports.
"There are several important points to highlight. There has been a constant increase in ART activity: it increased by more than 25% in the two years since the previous report for the year 2000. This is due not only to an increase in the number of countries participating in this report but also to an increase in ART activity in most individual countries.
"However, there are wide variations between countries in the availability and quality of ART. There are several reasons for this, such as fertility rates, women's age, insurance cover, the national economy, but the most important is certainly inequality in access to healthcare and ART. In Western Europe it is easier for people to access good healthcare, and funding for ART tends to be more generous than in developing countries. This raises the question of developing so called 'low cost' ART in low-income countries; it would probably mean lower success rates (the problem would be to define what rates would be acceptable), but greater access to treatment. In addition, treatment is usually more aggressive in developing countries and in all countries where ART is expensive for patients, leading to the consequent problems of multiple births, ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome and the need for foetal reductions."
Availability of ART varied from two cycles per million inhabitants (Ecuador) to 3688 per million in Israel.
Other key findings from the study include: