It's no surprise that all infertility treatment programs are not created equal. It may come as a surprise that neither are their success rates. This is due largely to the fact that there are currently no standard criteria in place for reporting success rates to the general public. Subsequently, treatment centers may use the data of their choice to make their success rates appear larger.

A center's stated success rate may mean any number of things, depending on if it refers to the number of women with initiated cycles, egg retrieval, embryo transfers, positive pregnancy tests or actual deliveries. Therefore, it is important to know what criteria a program is using to evaluate their success and to understand some basic success rate terminology. It may also be helpful to review national success rate information released by the Centers for Disease Control.

Numerous factors affect success rates, including the types of patients that clinics are willing to treat, cancellation rates and the number of embryos transferred. Rates will also vary based on the age of the patients treated and their general health, as well as their diagnoses.