International Committee for Monitoring Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ICMART): world report on assisted reproductive technologies, 2013

To report the utilization, effectiveness, and safety of practices in assisted reproductive technology (ART) globally in 2013 and assess global trends over time.

Retrospective, cross-sectional survey on the utilization, effectiveness, and safety of ART procedures performed globally during 2013.

Seventy-five countries and 2,639 ART clinics.

Women and men undergoing ART procedures.

All ART.

The ART cycles and outcomes on country-by-country, regional, and global levels. Aggregate country data were processed and analyzed based on methods developed by the International Committee for Monitoring Assisted Reproductive Technology (ICMART).

A total of 1,858,500 ART cycles were conducted for the treatment year 2013 across 2,639 clinics in 75 participating countries with a global participation rate of 73.6%. Reported and estimated data suggest 1,160,474 embryo transfers (ETs) were performed resulting in >344,317 babies. From 2012 to 2013, the number of reported aspiration and frozen ET cycles increased by 3% and 16.4%, respectively. The proportion of women aged >40 years undergoing nondonor ART increased from 25.2% in 2012 to 26.3% in 2013. As a percentage of nondonor aspiration cycles, intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) was similar to results for 2012. The in vitro fertilization (IVF)/ICSI combined delivery rates per fresh aspiration and frozen ET cycles were 24.2% and 22.8%, respectively. In fresh nondonor cycles, single ET increased from 33.7% in 2012 to 36.5% in 2013, whereas the average number of transferred embryos was 1.81-again with wide country variation. The rate of twin deliveries after fresh nondonor transfers was 17.9%; the triplet rate was 0.7%. In frozen ET cycles performed in 2013, single ET was used in 57.6%, with an average of 1.49 embryos transferred and twin and triplet rates of 10.8% and 0.4%, respectively. The cumulative delivery rate per aspiration was 30.4%, similar to that in 2012. Perinatal mortality rate per 1,000 births was 22.2% after fresh IVF/ICSI and 16.8% after frozen ET. The data presented depended on the quality and completeness of the data submitted by individual countries. This report covers approximately two-thirds of world ART activity. Continued efforts to improve the quality and consistency of reporting ART data by registries are still needed.

Reported ART cycles, effectiveness, and safety increased between 2012 and 2013 with adoption of a better method for estimating unreported cycles.