At SRMS, we feel it is of paramount importance for all patients to fully understand their chances for success. All too often we have found patients to be truly unaware of their chances for success for a given procedure performed outside of our facility. From an ethical perspective, informed consent must include the chances for success. Since some of these procedures are not covered by insurance, it becomes even more important for the patients to be aware of their probability for success.

For ease of reading, it is highly recommended that each graph and/or chart be printed out for review in hard copy format along with the corresponding supplemental copy descriptions of each study.

Therapeutic Donor Insemination (TDI): 10 Years of Data (1996-2005):
Therapeutic Donor Insemination: 1996-2005, download PDF

This data collection includes about 500 donor sperm procedures all captured over a 10-year time span.

The data is separated with regards to female age. In general, as one grows older, the overall success rates diminish. The normal pregnancy rates with healthy couples engaged in natural intercourse are used for comparison and are 20% per cycle for those < 35 years old, 15% per cycle for the 35-39 age bracket and only 10% per cycle (or perhaps lower) for those 40 and older.

The chart above and graph below are further divided with respect to procedure. TDI alone refers to the placement of donor sperm alone during a natural cycle (blue bars). For those that do not ovulate or are not successful with the TDI procedure alone, oral ovulatory agents (brown-tan bars) may be added such as clomiphene citrate (CC).

When necessary, injectable hormones termed "superovulation" are given to the women to induce the release of multiple eggs increasing the probability of pregnancy (light green bars).

Overall, the success rates increase as the level of intervention increases but the overall success rates decrease as the women age.

If you would like to learn more about the TDI/IUI procedure, please visit our download section and review the on-line packet of information.

Intra-Uterine Insemination (IUI) Success Rates: 10 Years of Data (1996-2005):
Intra-Uterine Insemination Pregnancy 1996-2005 Stats, download PDF

This data collection includes over 1100 insemination procedures all tallied over a 10 year time span.
The main data is separated with respect to female age. As expected, the overall success rates decrease as the women ages. The normal pregnancy rates with healthy couples using natural intercourse are used for comparison and are 20%, 15% and 10% per cycle in the women less than 35, 35 to 39 and 40 or more years old, respectively. It should always be kept in mind that subfertile patients are often getting pregnant at only about 1-2% per month, a dramatic decrease from the normal levels.

CC/IUI reflects the success rates with oral agents, such as clomiphene citrate (CC), combined with an intra-uterine insemination (IUI) procedure (blue bars). This data is further separated with a collection of 10 years of data (dark blue bars) and the more recent three years (light blue bars) of data.

Superovulation/IUI data reflects the success rates when injectable hormones are injected into the woman resulting in a larger number of eggs being released (i.e. targets) for the limited quantity and quality of sperm. The darker green bars reveal the 10 year success rates while the light green show the more recent three years.

A few points should be made:

• Success rates decrease as the women age.
• Success rates have again increased over the past three years.
• Superovulation/IUI success rates are generally higher compared to oral medication (CC/IUI) procedures.
• Moving from oral to injectable medications in the younger patients more than double the success rates whereas the more modest gains are seen in those women who are older.

IUI procedures are commonly used to treat subfertility although this technique has questionable use for those with tubal disease, severe endometriosis, severe male factor problems and women who are 44 or more years of age.

If you would like to learn more about the IUI procedure, please visit our download section and review the on-line packet of information. Don't forget to speak to your friendly neighborhood Reproductive Endocrinologist to find out what procedure is best for you!