Results

Number of Treatments

The number of infertility treatments at the Felicitas Clinic is about 1300/year, of which 750 are in vitro fertilization ( IVF ) or intracytoplasmic sperm injection ( ICSI ) treatments. The infertility treatments also include frozen-embryo transfers, artificial inseminations (IUI), hormone treatments, and treatments with donated sex cells.

PGD treatments, or treatments where genetic disorders in the embryo are investigated by the use of preimplantation diagnosis, have been given at the Felicitas Clinic since 2001. A few PGD treatments are conducted each year.

Achievements

Our clinic has been quick to adapt to new techniques and advances that the reproductive technology has offered during the past years. Some of the achievements of the clinic and its doctors include:

• The first IVF birth in Finland in 1984

• The first IVF birth in the private sector in Finland in 1985

• The first donor egg birth in Scandinavia in 1991

• The first intracytoplasmic sperm injection, or ICSI, birth in 1994

• The first blastocyst culture birth in Finland in 1995

• The first assisted hatching birth in Finland in 1996

• The first preimplantation diagnosis, or PGD, pregnancy at the Felicitas Clinic in 2004

• The first in vitro maturation, or IVM, birth at the Felicitas Clinic in 2004.

Presented Pregnancy Rates

Our pregnancy rates indicate the percentage of pregnancies per one embryo transfer. Up to 80 to 90% of the couples can be helped after several treatments. We onlyregister clinical pregnancies, which have been confirmed by ultrasound.

According to statistics, the most important factor affecting pregnancy is the age of the woman. Most clinics consider 38 years as the age limit for infertility treatments. The age of 40 is the limit after which the chances of conceiving decline significantly and this why we present separate pregnancy rates for women under 40 and over 39.

Nowadays we prefer, especially in Finland and in Sweden, to transfer only one embryo at the time (SET - single embryo transfer) in order to avoid the problems that are associated with multiple pregnancies. This may slightly reduce pregnancy rates and makes it more difficult to compare results between different clinics. The number of transferred embryos at one time can be high in some European countries and in other continents. This may result in high pregnancy rates but it also results in many multiple pregnancies with severe problems and a lot of miscarriages.

When presenting our pregnancy rates, we also publish the share of single embryo transfers and the share of multiple pregnancies. At the Felicitas Clinic, the share of single embryo transfers was 59% in 2005, 67% in 2006, and 65% in 2007. The share of multiple pregnancies during these years were 10%, 8%, and 8% respectively.

PREGNANCY RESULTS

Form of treatment	Pregnancies per transfer, %	Multiple pregnancies per pregnancy, %	*SET )**
Treatments women under 40-years
IVF- and ICSI-treatments in 2002-2006	35%	11%	50%
IVF- and ICSI-treatments in 2007	31%	8%	65%
Frozen-embryo transfers in 2002-2006	30%	9%	53%
Frozen-embryo transfers in 2007	29%	11%	62%

Treatments women over 39-years
IVF- and ICSI-treatments in 2002-2006	13%	6%	33%
IVF- and ICSI-treatments in 2007	16%	0%	44%

*)SET indicates the amount of single-embryo transfers of all transfers.