Prognostic factors in patients continuing in vitro fertilization or intracytoplasmic sperm injection treatment and dropouts.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate whether cumulative pregnancy rates using life table analysis but without considering dropouts are representative of the whole population of patients entering an in vitro fertilization (IVF) or intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) program.
DESIGN: Retrospective study.
SETTING: University hospital-based infertility center. PATIENT(S): One thousand one hundred sixty-nine patients entering our IVF/ICSI program from January 1993 to December 1996. INTERVENTION(S): Comparison of prognostic factors between pregnant and nonpregnant patients, and between patients continuing IVF/ICSI treatment and dropouts. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE(S): Prognostic factors, such as patient age, cancellation of oocyte retrieval because of poor response to ovarian stimulation, number of oocytes retrieved, fertilization rate, number and quality of embryos transferred. RESULT(S): No statistical differences in prognostic factors were found between patients continuing IVF/ICSI treatment and dropouts. CONCLUSION(S): Cumulative pregnancy rates using life table analysis can be considered representative of the whole population of patients for at least the first three treatment cycles.