Assisted reproductive technology in Europe, 1998. Results generated from European registers by ESHRE. European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology.

European results of assisted reproductive techniques from treatments initiated during 1998 are presented in this second ESHRE report. Data was collected from 18 European countries usually from pre-existing national registers. A total of 521 clinics from these 18 countries reported 232 443 cycles: IVF 103 919 intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) 89 192 unclassified fertilization method 667 frozen embryo replacement (FER) 34 03 oocyte donations (OD) 4629. In nine countries where all clinics reported to the register a total of 128 801 cycles were performed in a population of 165 million corresponding to 781 cycles per million inhabitants 3.2 cycles per 1000 women aged 15-49 years. After IVF ICSI the distribution of transfer of 1, 2, 3 > or =4 embryos was 11.5, 37.2, 42.0 and 9.4% respectively. Huge differences existed between countries. For IVF the clinical pregnancy rate per aspiration per transfer was 23.2% 27.0% respectively. For ICSI the corresponding rates were 24.8% 26.8%. The distribution of singleton, twin, triplet, quadruplet deliveries for IVF and ICSI combined was 73.7, 23.9, 2.3 and 0.1%. This gives a total multiple delivery rate of 26.3%. The range of triplet deliveries after IVF and ICSI differed from 0.2-5.3% between countries. Compared with 1997, the number of reported cycles has increased by 14% and the number of reporting clinics by 8%. The clinical pregnancy rate per transfer increased from 26.1 to 27.0% after IVF and from 26.4 to 26.8% after ICSI. Multiple deliveries after IVF and ICSI decreased from 29.6 to 26.3%.