EDITORIAL- The Middle East IVF Registry for the year 2000

The International Committee for monitoring ART (ICMART) conducted a workshop in Cairo in order to disseminate tools for data collection and train people to develop national and regional IVF registries. All IVF centers in the Middle East were invited. The program was designed to provide an overview on the already existing national and regional registry models and also to formulate a plan of action to establish the Middle East IVF registry. One hundred and thirty nine infertility specialists representing 97 IVF centers from 14 countries in the Middle East participated in the workshop. The forms for data collection prepared by ICMART were distributed to all centers. Thirty two centers from 8 countries completed the forms for IVF results for the year 2000. In total, data were collected from 1,778 IVF cycles, 14,562 ICSI cycles, and 1030 frozen thawed cycles and 45 GIFT cycles. The clinical pregnancy rates per pick-up were 31.6% in IVF and 27.4% in ICSI. The singleton delivery rate was 67%, twin delivery rate was 27.4% and triplet or high order was 5.2%. The total number of babies born were 621 in IVF, 3,576 in ICSI, 165 from frozen thawed cycles and 14 from oocyte donation. Ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome occurred in 1.68% of all cycles.