Test-tube baby treatments are booming around the world – and result in nearly a quarter of a million children annually, according to figures published today.
A census of assisted reproductive technology worldwide found that between 219,000 and 246,000 babies were born through the treatments in 2002.
In two years the number of treatments had increased by 25 per cent, researchers said.
The findings, based on 1,563 clinics in 53 countries, are published in the journal Human Reproduction.
The treatments are most popular in Israel and rarest in Ecuador, researchers said.
The study found a big increase in the use of the ICSI technique, which uses direct injection into the egg. Some 92 per cent of procedures in the Middle East were using this technique, as were 72 per cent in Latin America and 61 per cent in North America.
Researcher Professor Jacques de Mouzon, of INSERM, Paris, France, said: “There are wide variations between countries in the availability and quality of assisted reproductive technology (ART).
“There are several reasons for this, such as fertility rates, women’s age, insurance cover, the national economy, but the most important is certainly inequality in access to healthcare and ART.
“In Western Europe it is easier for people to access good healthcare, and funding for ART tends to be more generous than in developing countries. This raises the question of developing so called low cost ART in low-income countries; it would probably mean lower success rates (the problem would be to define what rates would be acceptable), but greater access to treatment.”
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