Blacks Have Lower Success Rates Of Fertility Treatment
June 8, 2000 -- A new study suggests that a popular fertility treatment may not work as well in black women as in white women. But even one of the authors of the small study, which appears in the June issue of Fertility and Sterility, says he is not sure how accurate the findings are or what they really mean.
In the study, 95 white women and 37 black women who were infertile had in vitro fertilization (IVF) in an attempt to become pregnant. In IVF, a women takes fertility drugs to stimulate release of her eggs. The eggs are then removed and mixed with the sperm of her partner or with donor sperm, and the embryo created by the egg and sperm is later implanted back in the woman's uterus.
The study found that IVF was more than twice as likely to result in a successful pregnancy in white women than black women. Both groups were similar in age and similar in other factors that might adversely affect the results of the procedure.
"We don't really have an explanation for it," says one of the study's authors, Howard D. McClamrock, MD. "It may be particular to our population, our program, it's hard to say. Research has to be done to determine what the issue is, whether it's differences in the way the patients are stimulated, whether it's differences in egg quality, differences in the endometrial environment. There would have to be a lot of work before we could know what kind of changes could be made to address the problem." McClamrock is director of the IVF program at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore.
Compared with white women, black women had a longer history of infertility before undergoing IVF, were heavier, and were more likely to have infertility resulting from problems with a fallopian tube. A significant percentage of infertility in women is related to problems of the fallopian tube, such as scar tissue which can block the tube, preventing the sperm from reaching the egg.
McClamrock tells WebMD that he considers the findings purely observational, but says he thinks larger studies should be done to see if certain factors common to black women could affect their chance of having a successful IVF procedure. Only three other studies have looked at racial differences and IVF. All three of those were done in the United Kingdom and involved white and Indian or Pakistani women. Two of the studies concluded that white women had better outcomes.
Blacks Have Lower Success Rates Of Fertility Treatment
June 8, 2000 -- A new study suggests that a popular fertility treatment may not work as well in black women as in white women. But even one of the authors of the small study, which appears in the June issue of Fertility and Sterility, says he is not sure how accurate the findings are or what they really mean.
In the study, 95 white women and 37 black women who were infertile had in vitro fertilization (IVF) in an attempt to become pregnant. In IVF, a women takes fertility drugs to stimulate release of her eggs. The eggs are then removed and mixed with the sperm of her partner or with donor sperm, and the embryo created by the egg and sperm is later implanted back in the woman's uterus.
The study found that IVF was more than twice as likely to result in a successful pregnancy in white women than black women. Both groups were similar in age and similar in other factors that might adversely affect the results of the procedure.
"We don't really have an explanation for it," says one of the study's authors, Howard D. McClamrock, MD. "It may be particular to our population, our program, it's hard to say. Research has to be done to determine what the issue is, whether it's differences in the way the patients are stimulated, whether it's differences in egg quality, differences in the endometrial environment. There would have to be a lot of work before we could know what kind of changes could be made to address the problem." McClamrock is director of the IVF program at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore.
Compared with white women, black women had a longer history of infertility before undergoing IVF, were heavier, and were more likely to have infertility resulting from problems with a fallopian tube. A significant percentage of infertility in women is related to problems of the fallopian tube, such as scar tissue which can block the tube, preventing the sperm from reaching the egg.
McClamrock tells WebMD that he considers the findings purely observational, but says he thinks larger studies should be done to see if certain factors common to black women could affect their chance of having a successful IVF procedure. Only three other studies have looked at racial differences and IVF. All three of those were done in the United Kingdom and involved white and Indian or Pakistani women. Two of the studies concluded that white women had better outcomes.