Pacific Rim Research Program

BACKGROUND Ethnicity is known to affect health care outcomes from disparities in access as well as from differential response to treatment. However, the role of ethnicity in patient response to infertility treatment has received little attention. METHODS To determine if Asian ethnicity affects outcomes of in vitro fertilization (IVF), we performed a comparative analysis of self-identified Asian and Caucasian infertile women. National registry data was analyzed to evaluate overall outcomes and data from an academic infertility clinic provided greater patient- and treatment-specific variables to investigate potential etiologic factors. RESULTS Infertile Asian women differed only minimally from their Caucasian counterparts in baseline characteristics and treatment response. However, Asian women in the registry dataset and in the clinic dataset had decreased clinical pregnancy rates (odds ratio 0.71 [0.64-0.80] and 0.69 [0.49-0.99], respectively), and live birth (odds ratio 0.69 [0.61-0.77] and 0.67 [0.46-0.98], respectively). CONCLUSIONS Asian women undergoing IVF have significantly fewer pregnancies than Caucasian women and this discrepancy cannot be accounted for by differences in baseline characteristics or response to current treatment protocols. 2