Outcome of Assisted Reproductive Technologies at a Fertility Center in Selected Hospital of Itanagar, India

Aim: This study aims to evaluate the outcomes of Assisted reproductive technologies (ART) services in infertile women aged 30 years and above.

Study Design: Cross-sectional, quantitative study design.

Place and Duration of Study: Fertility centers of two hospitals in Itanagar, Arunachal, India, between December 2018 to May 2019.

Methodology: The outcomes of ART among 384 infertile women aged 30 years and above were evaluated. The semi-structured questionnaire was used for face-to-face interview with the participants selected by random sampling technique. The descriptive statistics were used to represent the socio-demographic characteristics and ART outcomes of the study, and the chi-square test was used to identify the factors associated with successful and unsuccessful ART outcomes.

Results: Among the successful ART group the prevalence of primary and secondary infertility was 45.24% and 54.76% respectively; in the unsuccessful ART group the ratio was 61.5% primary and 38.50% and secondary infertility respectively. 54.68% of women had successful ART outcomes. The unsuccessful ART group was slightly older, had a slightly higher body mass index and included current smokers. Female factors were the primary cause of infertility in both groups of which endometriosis was most common followed by the tubal factory, polycystic ovarian syndrome, anovulation, uterine factor, and others. Majority of the successful ART outcome groups i.e. 96.19% had singleton outcomes, 2.38% had twins and 1.43% had triplets. 7.14% were preterm births and 11.90% had cases of low birth weight. Maternal complications among the successful ART groups were preeclampsia, gestational diabetes mellitus, hemorrhage, and hospitalization. Successful ART treatment group women were more satisfied in their life but no significant differences were found between the satisfied groups in both assisted reproductive technology treatment groups (p>0.05).

Conclusion: ART services were beneficial to infertile women although it raised concerns about prevalence of primary infertility among women in unsuccessful ART group. Also within successful ART outcomes, complications related to pregnancy and birth outcomes was observed.