ART in Latin America: the Latin American Registry, 2020

Abstract

Research question: What was the utilization, effectiveness and safety of assisted reproductive technology (ART) in Latin America during 2020?

Design: Retrospective collection of multinational data on ART performed by 188 institutions in 16 countries.

Results: Overall, 87,732 initiated cycles resulted in 12,778 deliveries and 14,582 births. The major contributors were Brazil (46.0%), Mexico (17.0%) and Argentina (16.8%). However, the highest utilization (cycles/million inhabitants) was Uruguay with 558, followed by Argentina with 490 and Panama with 425 cycles/million. Globally, women aged ≥40 years increased to 34% while women ≤34 dropped to 24.7%. After removing freeze-all cycles, the delivery rate per oocyte retrieval was 14.8% for intracytoplasmic sperm injection and 15.6% for IVF. Single-embryo transfer (SET) represented 38.3% of all fresh transfers, with delivery rate per transfer of 20.0%; this increased to 32.4% for elective SET (eSET) and 34.2% for blastocyst eSET, compared with blastocyst elective double embryo transfer (eDET) of 37.9%. However, multiple births increased from 1% in eSET to 30.5% in eDET. Perinatal mortality increased from 7.7‰ in singletons to 24.4‰ in twins and 64.0‰ in triplets. Frozen embryo transfer (FET) represented 66.6% of all transfers, with a delivery rate/transfer of 29.0%, significantly higher than 23.9% after fresh transfers at all ages (P < 0.0001). Preimplantation genetic testing, reported in 8920 cycles, significantly improved delivery rate and decreased miscarriage rates at all ages (P ≤ 0.041), including oocyte donation (P = 0.002). Endometriosis was diagnosed in 28.3% of cases. The delivery rate in 5779 women after removal of peritoneal endometriosis was significantly better than tubal and endocrine factors in women aged 35-39 (P = 0.0004) and women aged ≥40 (P = 0.0353).

Conclusions: Systematic collection and analysis of big data in a south-south cooperation model allow regional growth by implementing evidence-based reproductive decisions.

Keywords: ART registry; Endometriosis; Frozen embryo transfer; Oocyte donation; Perinatal mortality; Preimplantation genetic testing.