The DOI matches its Crossref record.
Association between the number of eggs and live birth in IVF treatment: an analysis of 400 135 treatment cycles
Abstract
BACKGROUND: While live birth is the principal clinical outcome following in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatment, the number of eggs retrieved following ovarian stimulation is often used as a surrogate outcome in clinical practice and research. The aim of this study was to explore the association between egg number and live birth following IVF treatment and identify the number of eggs that would optimize the IVF outcome. METHODS: Anonymized data on all IVF cycles performed in the UK from April 1991 to June 2008 were obtained from the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority (HFEA). We analysed data from 400 135 IVF cycles. A logistic model was fitted to predict live birth using fractional polynomials to handle the number of eggs as a continuous independent variable. The prediction model, which was validated on a separate HFEA data set, allowed the estimation of the probability of live birth for a given number of eggs, stratified by age group. We produced a nomogram to predict the live birth rate (LBR) following IVF based on the number of eggs and the age of the female. RESULTS: The median number of eggs retrieved per cycle was 9 [inter-quartile range (IQR) 6-13]. The overall LBR was 21.3% per fresh IVF cycle. There was a strong association between the number of eggs and LBR; LBR rose with an increasing number of eggs up to ∼15, plateaued between 15 and 20 eggs and steadily declined beyond 20 eggs. During 2006-2007, the predicted LBR for women with 15 eggs retrieved in age groups 18-34, 35-37, 38-39 and 40 years and over was 40, 36, 27 and 16%, respectively. There was a steady increase in the LBR per egg retrieved over time since 1991. CONCLUSION: The relationship between the number of eggs and live birth, across all female age groups, suggests that the number of eggs in IVF is a robust surrogate outcome for clinical success. The results showed a non-linear relationship between the number of eggs and LBR following IVF treatment. The number of eggs to maximize the LBR is ∼15.
Overview
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Citations
Cited by
The impact of endometrioma on IVF/ICSI outcomes: a systematic review and meta-analysis
Hamdan, M., Dunselman, G., Li, T. C., & Cheong, Y. (2015) · Human Reproduction Update · doi:10.1093/humupd/dmv035 · Cited by 375
Araki, M., & Ishii, T. (2014) · Reproductive Biology and Endocrinology · doi:10.1186/1477-7827-12-108 · Cited by 150
Screening Human Embryos for Polygenic Traits Has Limited Utility
Karavani, E., Zuk, O., Zeevi, D., Barzilai, N., Stefanis, N. C., Hatzimanolis, A., Smyrnis, N., Avramopoulos, D., Kruglyak, L., Atzmon, G., et al. (2019) · Cell · doi:10.1016/j.cell.2019.10.033 · Cited by 111
Sub-optimal responders following controlled ovarian stimulation: an overlooked group?
Polyzos, N. P., & Sunkara, S. K. (2015) · Human Reproduction · doi:10.1093/humrep/dev149 · Cited by 106
Self-citationCumulative live birth rates after ivf in patients with polycystic ovaries: Phenotype matters
De Vos, M., Pareyn, S., Drakopoulos, P., Raimundo, J. M., Anckaert, E., Santos-Ribeiro, S., Polyzos, N. P., Tournaye, H., & Blockeel, C. (2018) · Reproductive BioMedicine Online · doi:10.1016/j.rbmo.2018.05.003 · Cited by 70
Metadata
- Authors
- Sunkara, S. K., Rittenberg, V., Raine-Fenning, N., Bhattacharya, S., Zamora, J., & Coomarasamy, A.
- Venue
- Human Reproduction
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2011-05-10
- Volume
- 26
- Issue
- 7
- Pages
- 1768-1774
- ISSN
- 0268-1161 (ISSN-L)
- 1460-2350
- OpenAlex
- W2138674040
- Cited by
- 924
- References
- 0
- FWCI
- 34.69
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
How to cite
Cite CoChat for the checks on this page, and the paper for its own findings.
- This page
- CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Association between the number of eggs and live birth in IVF treatment: an analysis of 400 135 treatment cycles. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1093/humrep/der106
- The paper
- Sunkara, S. K., Rittenberg, V., Raine-Fenning, N., Bhattacharya, S., Zamora, J., & Coomarasamy, A. (2011). Association between the number of eggs and live birth in IVF treatment: an analysis of 400 135 treatment cycles. Human Reproduction. https://doi.org/10.1093/humrep/der106
Data sources
Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.
