Anesthesia practices in the United States common to in vitro fertilization (IVF) centers

Purpose: Our purpose was to characterize and describe anesthesia practice in programs performing NF in the United States. Methods: We used a telephone survey requiring respondents to be either the program director; a physician, or a nurse familiar with the practice. Two hundred seven (78%) Society of Assisted Reproductive Technology (SART) registered programs agreed to participate. Programs were divided by geographic region and type of practice (academic versus private). Results: Ninety-one private (68%) and 41 academic (56%) programs used personnel provided by the Department of Anesthesiology. Conscious sedation was performed most commonly (95%). The remaining 5% used primarily either general, regional, or local anesthesia. Typical recovery times were 90 to 120 min. Average costs of anesthetic administration were $300-$400 and were similar among groups except for the Eastern academic programs, with a higher mean cost of $543. Programs using personnel from anesthesiology reported higher costs compared to programs utilizing their own staff ($391 +/- 15 vs $157 +/- 11; P < 0.05). Complications were infrequent (<10%); no hospitalizations or serious life-threatening incidents were reported. Conclusions: A large number of programs safely used their own trained personnel to deliver anesthesia, and realized a significant reduction in cost.