WEBVTT

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- As we've covered,
fertility treatment

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requires a real sacrifice.

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And for all of that investment,

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most people have one
question: how much

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will fertility treatment
improve my chances to take home

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a baby? Again,

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for most patients, if they
haven't conceived naturally

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within six to 12 months,

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it's unlikely that they'll
conceive naturally at all.

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Not to say that it won't happen,

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but the odds are
remote. For patients

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who do intrauterine
insemination or IUI,

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the data suggests on average
each cycle is likely to work

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1% to 10% of the time.

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That's for
African American patients,

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Caucasian patients, and
most every other race.

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There are, of course,
exceptions and outliers.

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For instance, younger and
women in same sex relationships

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often have higher
rates of success.

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But for the most part,
1% to 10% per cycle

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is a good rule of thumb.

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As we've talked about, success
rates for patients doing

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IVF vary by age, but
generally speaking

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African American patients
have a lower success rates

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than Caucasian women.

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Unfortunately, most but not
all studies back this up.

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Why do we bring this up?

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Because when clinics show
patients success rates,

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African American
women and couples

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need to recalibrate,
and maybe discount

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how that data applies to them.

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And we'll get specific
here in a second.

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But it is very
important to think

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about the stuff in the context
of your practical alternatives.

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Yes, someone else may have
more success with IVF,

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but IVF may still be a much
better alternative for you

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than simply doing nothing
or avoiding treatment.

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OK, now back to health success
rates can vary by race.

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In our minds,

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there are really three important
things to measure here.

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First, is the pregnancy
rate, or the percentage

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of women who start an IVF
cycle that get pregnant.

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A cycle starts when a woman
takes hormones and has

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her eggs retrieved.

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So after having done that,

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how often does she
become pregnant?

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That's the pregnancy rate.

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Next, is the miscarriage
rate or the percentage

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of women who get
pregnant that ultimately

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suffer a miscarriage.

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That's the miscarriage rate.

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Finally, there's
the live birth rate

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or the percentage of women who
do an IVF cycle who ultimately

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deliver a baby.

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To illustrate what most
of the data tells us,

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we'll look at one
study that includes

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about 300 African American
patients treated

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at a single center.

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- As for the pregnancy rate in
this study, 36% of Caucasians

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and 24% of
African American women

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conceived. After adjusting
for a few factors,

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investigators determined
African American women

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were half as likely
to get pregnant

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from a single round
of IVF.

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- Next is the miscarriage rate. In
the study of those women

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lucky enough to get pregnant,

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15% of Caucasian women and 29%

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of African American
women miscarried.

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- As for the live-birth rate,
30% of Caucasian woman

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delivered a child
after one cycle.

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For African American
women, success rates

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were pretty much half of that.

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So what's driving all
of this? As we'll cover,

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African American women typically
get treated at older ages,

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have higher body mass indexes,
and different underlying

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issues.

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But this study's investigators
corrected for those factors

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and still saw a disparity.

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So theoretically, there
is some additional factor

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that may be associated with
African American patients that

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correlate with or drive
lower rates of success.

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Ultimately, I think there are
two take home messages here.

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First, success rates that
are advertised to you

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may not reflect your
odds of success.

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And you may need to adjust
your schedule and budget

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accordingly.

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Second, the vast
majority of patients

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who aren't able to conceive
naturally, getting treatment

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improves the odds
they'll have a baby.

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And yes that treatment may be
more effective for some groups

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than others.