A year after expanding the financial subsidy for assisted fertility services and limiting the maximum number of embryos implanted, the success rate of single-embryo transfer (SET) and double embryo transfer (DET) procedures for in vitro fertilization (IVF) has increased from 72.7 percent to 93.9 percent, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said.
A physician described the subsidy expansion program and related policy as a “silent revolution,” as it has not only changed medical behavior, but enabled assisted fertility services using precision medicine to rapidly expand and develop.
The policy stipulates that women aged 35 or under can only undergo SET, while women older than 35 can choose a SET or a DET procedure.
Photo: Tsai Shu-yuan, Taipei Times
Based on preimplantation genetic testing for aneuploidy — a technique used to analyze the number of chromosomes present in IVF embryos — the rate of normal blastocyst formation on the fifth day after fertilization in 40-year-old women is 48 to 54 percent, which means the SET success rate is about 50 percent, Fertility Society of the Republic of China chairman and clinical gynecologist Chang Fan (張帆) said.
Therefore, performing a DET can increase the success rate, although when more than one embryo is planted, the chance of giving birth to twins increases, he said.
In the past, people often asked for more embryos to be implanted to increase the success rate of a single IVF procedure, so the rate of multiple births for IVF pregnancies was about 24.1 percent in 2019, HPA data showed.
Lai Tsung-Hsuan (賴宗炫), director of Cathay General Hospital’s Assisted Reproductive Center, said the rate of multiple births in IVF pregnancies is lower than 10 percent in some Western countries — a goal that Taiwan is trying to achieve.
To effectively reduce the risk of multiple births while increasing the rate of pregnancy, artificial intelligence technology is used to select the best embryo for transfer, such as the time-lapse embryo culture system, preimplantation genetic screening and endometrial receptivity analysis, Lai said, adding that these precision methods have increased the IVF success rate.
However, these methods are not included in the HPA’s financial subsidy program, so people must ask their doctor whether they are recommended, he said, adding that they are usually suggested for older women and women with repeated embryo implantation failures, as well as men with serious male infertility conditions.
As of Monday last week, 42,642 cases have been approved for the HPA’s financial subsidy for assisted fertility services since it was expanded in July last year, HPA figures showed.
Among them, 28,139 cases have completed the IVF procedure and passed the subsidy review, receiving a total of more than NT$1.97 billion (US$65.79 million), and 2,318 couples have given birth to 2,604 babies.
The average age of first-time mothers was 31.23 last year, up from 31.09 in 2020, and women of an advanced maternal age (35 years or older) accounted for 31.64 percent of last year’s pregnancies.
Taiwanese Society for Reproductive Medicine secretary-general Ho Hsin-i (何信頤) said people might see public figures become pregnant at an advanced maternal age and assume that they can freeze their eggs first and rely on IVF later.
However, according to the HPA’s IVF data, the live birth rate per embryo transferred is nearly 50 percent in women aged 35 or under, and less than 20 percent in women aged 41 or older, he said.
The HPA also encourages married couples to make birth plans and try to give birth earlier at childbearing age, as the risks of complications increase with age.
The inspection equipment and data transmission system for new robotic dogs that Taipei is planning to use for sidewalk patrols were developed by a Taiwanese company, the city’s New Construction Office said today, dismissing concerns that the China-made robots could pose a security risk. The city is bringing in smart robotic dogs to help with sidewalk inspections, Taipei Deputy Mayor Lee Ssu-chuan (李四川) said on Facebook. Equipped with a panoramic surveillance system, the robots would be able to automatically flag problems and easily navigate narrow sidewalks, making inspections faster and more accurate, Lee said. By collecting more accurate data, they would help Taipei
STATS: Taiwan’s average life expectancy of 80.77 years was lower than that of Japan, Singapore and South Korea, but higher than in China, Malaysia and Indonesia Taiwan’s average life expectancy last year increased to 80.77 years, but was still not back to its pre-COVID-19 pandemic peak of 81.32 years in 2020, the Ministry of the Interior said yesterday. The average life expectancy last year increased the 0.54 years from 2023, the ministry said in a statement. For men and women, the average life expectancy last year was 77.42 years and 84.30 years respectively, up 0.48 years and 0.56 years from the previous year. Taiwan’s average life expectancy peaked at 81.32 years in 2020, as the nation was relatively unaffected by the pandemic that year. The metric
TAKING STOCK: The USMC is rebuilding a once-abandoned airfield in Palau to support large-scale ground operations as China’s missile range grows, Naval News reported The US Marine Corps (USMC) is considering new sites for stockpiling equipment in the West Pacific to harden military supply chains and enhance mobility across the Indo-Pacific region, US-based Naval News reported on Saturday. The proposed sites in Palau — one of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies — and Australia would enable a “rapid standup of stored equipment within a year” of the program’s approval, the report said, citing documents published by the USMC last month. In Palau, the service is rebuilding a formerly abandoned World War II-era airfield and establishing ancillary structures to support large-scale ground operations “as China’s missile range and magazine
A 72-year-old man in Kaohsiung was sentenced to 40 days in jail after he was found having sex with a 67-year-old woman under a slide in a public park on Sunday afternoon. At 3pm on Sunday, a mother surnamed Liang (梁) was with her child at a neighborhood park when they found the man, surnamed Tsai (蔡), and woman, surnamed Huang (黃), underneath the slide. Liang took her child away from the scene, took photographs of the two and called the police, who arrived and arrested the couple. During questioning, Tsai told police that he had met Huang that day and offered to
RSS