Safety and Quality in ART

The Special Interest Group on Safety and Quality in ART (SIG SQUART) was founded during the 18th Annual Meeting (Vienna, 30 June to 3 July 2002).

The primary aim of the SIG is to provide written recommendations and guidelines of good medical practice with respect to the prevention of risks and complications of ART, in accordance with present knowledge and widely supported by those who are active in the field, in order to improve the safety and the quality of ART treatments.

Article not to be missed:

When and how should new technology be introduced into the IVF laboratory?
Harper J, Magli MC, Lundin K, Barratt CL, Brison D.
Hum Reprod. 2012 Feb;27(2):303-13

Mission statement

The Special Interest Group should be active in organizing symposia and pre-congress courses on topics, which are defined by “Safety and Quality in ART”. The Special Interest Group will also cooperate with the European IVF Monitoring (EIM) Consortium to provide advice and support in identifying topics of interest that in the largest sense are related to safety and quality aspects of ART treatments, such as health economics, psychosocial, sexual aspects and the impact on families and individual persons confronted with ART treatments.

The specific areas of interest of the Special Interest Group were defined as follows:

Risks and complications in ART treatments and all matters pertaining to safety and quality of ART treatments.

Recognized risks and complications are mainly:

• Multiple pregnancies after IVF and non IVF treatments
• Other risks and complications:

-OHSS

- Oncogeneity

- Genetics

- Congential anomalies

- Miscellaneous (infections, bleeding, thrombo-embolic disorders, etc.)

- Mortality

- Psyhcosocial, legal, social, sexual aspects Health-economic aspects of ART

- The voice of the patient