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Division of Reproductive
Health: Activities—ART Surveillance System |
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In the United States and worldwide, assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) are
increasingly used to overcome all types of infertility disorders. More than 54,000 infants were born from ART treatments in 2006, representing more than
1% of the U.S. birth cohort. Assisted reproductive technology (ART) is
associated with a substantial risk for multiple birth. Multiple birth is
associated with poor infant and maternal health outcomes, including
pregnancy complications, preterm delivery, low birth weight, congenital
malformations, and infant death. As more women seek medical assistance to
overcome their infertility it becomes important to ensure the safety of
medical technology used and to continue research into the causes and
prevention of infertility. The ART team works to achieve its goals through
surveillance and epidemiologic research; training, technical assistance,
consultation and collaboration with partners; the development of
definitions, and standards; and informing public policy.
Reporting fertility clinic success rates
ART Data Linkage Project
The CDC has developed a collaborative project with the
Massachusetts (MA) Department of Public Health to link data from the ART
surveillance system with birth and death records for infants born to MA
resident mothers. This linked data set will allow for more detailed analyses
of maternal and infant health outcomes. |
The Fertility Clinic Success Rate and Certification Act (FCSRCA) of 1992
mandates that
clinics performing ART annually provide data for all procedures performed to
CDC. CDC is required to publish success rates for each clinic. The CDC
uses the data to report clinic-specific success rates. The first joint
report, The 1995 Assisted Reproductive Technology Success Rates Report, was
released in December 1997. Since then, the team has continued to publish
Assisted Reproductive Technology Success Rates Reports annually. The
twelfth
report, the 2006 Assisted Reproductive Technology Success Rates, was released
in December 2009, CDC's Division of
Reproductive Health has also
published an MMWR Surveillance Summary on ART
procedures performed in
2000, 2001, 2002, 2003,
2004 and 2005. These reports supplement the annual
success rates report, providing state-specific information on ART use,
number of infants, and multiple births resulting from ART. In addition, data
from the surveillance system have been used to perform more in-depth
analyses of risks associated with ART, particularly multiple births and low
birth weight.
Future Directions
The CDC will explore mechanisms to better assess the potential for
short-and long-term health effects associated with ART women, infants, and
families. In 2001 CDC began a collaborative project with the Massachusetts
Department of Public Health to explore the possibility of linking ART data
with birth certificate and death certificate records. The main objective was
to—
- create a population-based dataset of ART mother-infant pairs with
information on both conception and delivery, and
- compare this with similar data from other mother-infant pairs in the
population.
This project strengthens our capacity to evaluate maternal and infant
outcomes of ART. The results of the project indicate that systematic
assessment of certain adverse outcomes is feasible through linkage of the
ART data with existing vital statistics and health care information systems.
To develop surveillance data on maternal and infant health outcomes after
ART, we are discussing the possibility of expanding the linkage process to
more information items (e.g., hospital discharge summaries) and more states.
We envision establishing a collaborative network of 5–10 states where use of
ART is common and where vital statistics records allow linkages. Such a
network would be a first and important step toward developing a national
surveillance system of ART maternal and infant health outcomes.
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Page last reviewed: 3/26/09
Page last modified: 3/26/09
Content source: Division
of Reproductive Health,
National Center for Chronic Disease
Prevention and Health Promotion |
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