ANESTHESIA PRACTICES IN THE UNITED-STATES COMMON TO IN-VITRO FERTILIZATION (IVF) CENTERS

Purpose: Our purpose was to characterize and describe anesthesia pract ice in programs performing NF in the United States. Methods: We used a telephone survey requiring respondents to be either the program direc tor; a physician, or a nurse familiar with the practice. Two hundred s even (78%) Society of Assisted Reproductive Technology (SART) register ed programs agreed to participate. Programs were divided by geographic region and type of practice (academic versus private). Results: Ninet y-one private (68%) and 41 academic (56%) programs used personnel prov ided by the Department of Anesthesiology. Conscious sedation was perfo rmed most commonly (95%). The remaining 5% used primarily either gener al, regional, or local anesthesia. Typical recovery times were 90 to 1 20 min. Average costs of anesthetic administration were $300-$400 and were similar among groups except for the Eastern academic programs, wi th a higher mean cost of $543. Programs using personnel from anesthesi ology reported higher costs compared to programs utilizing their own s taff ($391 +/- 15 vs $157 +/- 11; P < 0.05). Complications were infreq uent (<10%); no hospitalizations or serious life-threatening incidents were reported. Conclusions: A large number of programs safely used th eir own trained personnel to deliver anesthesia, and realized a signif icant reduction in cost.