Specialty Groups

European IVF Monitoring (EIM)

“The European IVF Monitoring Program was initiated by Dr K.G. Nygren (Sweden) and Dr A.N. Andersen (Denmark) with the aim to start a collaborative IVF-data collection program for all European countries.

Following a decision by the ESHRE Executive Committee, it was agreed to invite representatives from all national IVF data registries to join efforts in establishing this IVF data collection program for Europe. In countries where national IVF registers were non-existent, individuals were identified to act as "focal points" for IVF data collection in their respective country.

A first meeting, including representatives from 19 European countries, met on the occasion of the 15th Annual Meeting in Tours (France) in June 1999. During this meeting the EIM Consortium, including the representatives from the various European countries, was formally established. This Consortium discussed and adopted the ESHRE proposal for a European IVF Monitoring Program (the EIM program) with the aim to collect, process and finally publish regional data for Europe on direct clinical results, but also on side-effects, follow-up of children's well-being and also on the availability and the structure of services in the different countries. It was agreed that ESHRE should collect, audit and publish the data on an annual basis. Thus the reports would allow for comparisons between different countries in Europe and to other regions of the world.

During the first meeting in Tours, the Consortium already decided to publish a first report showing the situation of IVF data collection systems in the different European countries. It appeared to be a very dynamic situation with several countries just starting or refining their data collection systems.

The Consortium also agreed to start collecting national summary data on direct clinical IVF outcomes for treatments initiated during 1997, including cohort data for corresponding deliveries. The results of this first data collection were to be presented at the 16th Annual Meeting held in Bologna (Italy) in June 2000.

Since the first meeting in 1999, the EIM Consortium expanded to include the following countries:

Austria

Belgium

Bulgaria

Czech

Republic

Denmark

Finland

France

Germany

Greece

Hungary

Iceland

Ireland (Republic of)

Italy

Latvia

Lithuania

Macedonia

Montenegro

Norway

Poland

Portugal

Russia

Serbia

Slovakia

Slovenia

Spain

Sweden

Switzerland

The Netherlands

Ukraine

United Kingdom

Six reports have been published in “Human Reproduction” so far:

- Assisted reproductive technology in Europe, 1997. Results generated from European registers by ESHRE. Human Reproduction. Vol.16, No 2 , 384-391, 2001

- Assisted reproductive technology in Europe, 1998. Results generated from European registers by ESHRE. Human Reproduction. Vol.16, No 11, 2459-2471, 2001

- Assisted reproductive technology in Europe, 1999. Results generated from European registers by ESHRE. Human Reproduction. Vol.17, No 12, 3260-3274, 2002

- Nyboe Andersen A, Gianaroli L, Nygren KG. Assisted Reproductive Technology in Europe, 2000. Results generated from European Registers by ESHRE. Human Reproduction, 2004, 19, 490 – 503.

- Nyboe Andersen A, Gianaroli L, Felberbaum R, de Mouzon J and Nygren KG. Assisted Reproductive Technology in Europe, 2001. Results generated from European Registers by ESHRE. Human Reproduction 2005, 20, 1158-76.

- Nyboe Andersen A., Gianaroli L., Felberbaum R., de Mouzon J. and Nygren K.G. Assisted reproductive technology in Europe, 2002. Results generated from European registers by ESHRE. Human Reproduction 2006

- Nyboe Andersen A., Goossens V., Gianaroli L., Felberbaum R., de Mouzon J. and Nygren K.G. Assisted reproductive technology in Europe, 2003. Results generated from European registers by ESHRE. Human Reproduction 2007

- A. Nyboe Andersen, V. Goossens, A.P. Ferraretti, S. Bhattacharya, R. Felberbaum, J. de Mouzon, K.G. Nygren, The European IVF-monitoring (EIM) Consortium. Assisted reproductive technology in Europe, 2004. Results generated from European registers by ESHRE. Human Reproduction 2008

- A. Nyboe Andersen, V. Goossens, S. Bhattacharya, A.P. Ferraretti, M.S. Kupka, J. de Mouzon, K.G. Nygren and The European IVF-monitoring (EIM) Consortium, Assisted reproductive technology and intrauterine inseminations in Europe, 2005: results generated from European registers by ESHRE, Human Reproduction 2009

These article are also freely available on the website of Oxford University Press.