Success rates for subsidised AR cycles

2 August 2017

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Name and Constituency of Member of Parliament

Mr Louis Ng Kok Kwang

MP for Nee Soon GRC

Question No. 550

To ask the Minister for Health how many couples and what is the percentage of couples who did not have a successful pregnancy after the three cycles of Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) treatment that is subsidised by the Government.

Written Reply

1 Under the assisted reproductive technology (ART) co-funding scheme, eligible couples can receive up to 75% in co-funding from the Government for ART treatment cycles, for a maximum of 3 fresh and 3 frozen ART cycles, until the patient reaches 40 years of age.

2 MOH’s AR database captures information on the number of live-births by individual ART cycles, and thus the success and failure rates at each cycle. Of Government-funded cycles of ART between 2013 and 2015, 75.3% were unsuccessful after the first cycle. This figure increased to 79.3% and 81.9% after the second and third cycles respectively. The likelihood of a successful cycle of ART is higher for those who are younger.

Note: Please refer to Annex A for the breakdown by year.

ANNEX A

Data for unsuccessful co-funded AR cycles

Table 1

Table caption

Number of Govt Co-funded Cycles	2013	2014	2015	Average 2013 to 2015
1st Co-funding	1689	1967	1985	1880
2nd Co-funding	527	729	918	725
3rd Co-funding	149	210	309	223
Total	2365	2906	3212	2828

Table 2

Table caption

Number of Govt Co-funded Cycles with no Live Birth Pregnancy	2013	2014	2015	Average 2013 to 2015
1st Co-funding	1291	1476	1482	1416
2nd Co-funding	419	560	745	575
3rd Co-funding	126	176	245	182
Total	1836	2212	2472	2173

Table 3

Table caption

% of unsuccessful cycles (Govt Co-funded Cycles)	2013	2014	2015	Average 2013 to 2015
1st Co-funding	76.4	75.0	74.7	75.3
2nd Co-funding	79.5	76.8	81.2	79.3
3rd Co-funding	84.6	83.8	79.3	81.9
Total	77.6	76.1	77.0	76.9
p-value of test for trend	0.011	0.009	0.001	0.006

Note: The ART co-funding scheme was enhanced in 2013 to extend co-funding to an additional 3 frozen cycles, on top of the previous maximum of 3 fresh cycles. The increase in unsuccessful rates across the 3 co-funded cycles was significant for all the individual years as well as the average across the 3 years (p<0.05).