The POPI-PLUS tool

IVF is a recommended treatment for many infertile couples. IVF is often a last resort treatment for many women. It is a stressful process including injections, side effects, costs and many visits and, of course, very high hopes of becoming pregnant. For all these reasons, going through IVF is a quite difficult process. Indeed, once you know you are pregnant, the delay until the viability scan, which is done 3 weeks after the positive test (7 weeks pregnant), is very stressful. Knowing, at the first pregnancy test, what is your chance of having a baby may help you go through this difficult waiting period more easily.

The POPI-PLUS tool was created from all the positive pregnancy tests following IVF with sET at the Clinic of Assisted Reproduction of the Hospital Center of the University of Montreal (CHUM) and the OVO Clinic, in Montreal, Canada, between 2011 and 2016.

All the data was anonymized before creating the tool. Only the first pregnancy per woman was included and all the pregnancies originated from sET. Therefore, 1995 positive pregnancy tests were used. The model was created with 1398 positive pregnancy tests and validated with another set of 597 positive pregnancy tests. The variables used in the prediction tool are the age at the time of egg collection (age of the embryo), the level of the 1^st and 2^nd βhCG, the percentage change of βhCG and the type of cycle. Our study is the first to demonstrate that the type of treatment influences the pregnancy outcome in IVF.

To obtain your chance of having a live born following IVF, you need to enter your age (age of the embryo transferred), the level of the 1^st and 2^nd βhCG performed exactly 15 and 17 days after egg collection or 15 and 17 days after the day 0 in a FET and the type of treatment (stimulated IVF, natural IVF or FET).

This prediction model is not perfect. There are certainly other variables not measured that influence a woman’s chance of having a live birth. We still hope this tool will help you get better prepared for the viability ultrasound.

Don’t hesitate to contact your fertility doctor if you are concerned about your predicted chance of live birth.