When looking at and comparing infertility programs, many couples fall into the trap of taking numbers and statistics at face value. In reality, there is more behind the numbers which one needs to understand.

In December of 1997, CNN did a program about this issue. Their findings were that in general, the best infertility programs often have lower pregnancy rates because they don't turn patients away, taking the toughest cases instead. Therefore statistics are not the only indicator in determining where one has the best chance for success.

Results will always be skewed downward for clinics that take on more difficult cases. In these types of programs, patients who are in the worst category for prognosis (the likelihood of solving their infertility problems) will often get over-represented. Eventually, many poor-prognosis patients do get pregnant, and they must not be denied that opportunity. But their pregnancy rate per cycle is low, which lowers the clinic's overall pregnancy rate statistics.

In massive, impersonal programs, where patients are made to wait excessively for treatment, there are typically very few "repeat" cycles. In such programs, patients who have not gotten pregnant in one or two cycles are often either canceled or go somewhere else. Therefore the patients who are in the worst category for prognosis do not get properly represented in the figures of these more impersonal infertility programs.

Compare a program which has almost a 0% "cancellation" rate to those with more typical 20% rates of cancellation. One would have to subtract almost 20% from the "delivery" rate of these other programs, offsetting their 20% cancellation rate, in order to get a reasonable comparative evaluation. So programs which do not cancel poor-prognosis patients will have an apparently lower success rate, even though they may be more able to handle very difficult cases.

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