Race may play a role in the success of their infertility treatment

Oct 18 2004

Research presented today at the 60th Annual Meeting of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) indicated that a patient’s race may play a role in the success of their infertility treatment.

Researchers led by Dr. David Grainger at the University of Kansas in Wichita, examined the records of more than 75,000 patients who underwent a cycle of Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) in 1999 and 2000. The patients were categorized as White Non-Hispanic (WNH), Black Non-Hispanic (BNH), Asian Non-Hispanic (ANH) or Hispanic Any Race (HAR).

Among the findings were that Asian patients were significantly older than the other groups, with a mean age of 35.5 years. The overall live birth rate was lower for Blacks and Asians than for Whites and Hispanics when controlled for age. Black women had more infertility diagnoses than white women, and were more likely to have a miscarriage when they became pregnant. However, these differences only appeared when comparing fresh cycles. Cycles using frozen embryos did not show a difference by race. (Abstract No. O-93, Racial Disparity in Clinical Outcomes from Women Using Advanced Reproductive Technologies (ART): Analysis of 80,196 ART Cycles from the SART Database 1999 and 2000. D.A. Grainger et al.)

A team of investigators at the University of California, San Francisco examined the records from 1,200 ART cycles at their own clinic performed between 2001 and 2003. They did not find a significant age difference between Asian and non Asian patients. However, they did find that Asian patients had a lower pregnancy rate than non-Asians. (Abstract No. O-98, Asian Ethnicity is Associated with a Reduced Pregnancy Outcome with in vitro Fertilization. K.J. Purcell.)

“This research, while preliminary, is important,” stated Marian Damewood, MD, President of the ASRM. “We need to further explore these apparent racial differences to see if we can better understand, and hopefully address their causes.”