Over 50,000 IVF babies born in UK

More than 50,000 babies have been born following IVF  treatment in the UK, according to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA)'s annual report. There has been a steady rise in patients, treatments and success rates since the birth of Louise Brown in 1978, with over half of all IVF babies born during the last three years. The report was published last week and is now available on the HFEA's website.

The latest edition of the HFEA's Patient's Guide to DI (donor insemination) and IVF Clinics was also published last Wednesday, prompting calls for tougher action against hospitals with very low success rates. Dr Mohammed Taranissi, head of the private Assisted Reproduction and Gynaecology Centre in London, told the Times newspaper that the HFEA should consider closing clinics with poor results. Dr Taranissi's clinic tops the fertility 'league table' with a success rate of 43.4% for women under 38, but he denies selecting patients to produce better results. 'The results we get are the kind of results you should expect across the board' he said.

The national average success rate for women under 38 is 22.1 per cent, dropping to 18.2 per cent across all ages. Clinics at the bottom of the table had success rates of four or five per cent, a difference which fertility expert Dr Simon Fishel also finds unacceptable. 'In no way can the present figures be explained by patient variation, so there must be other problems which the HFEA should look at' he said.