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25 May 2011

Summary of request

The Authority was asked whether it holds information about the number of non-UK based women receiving treatment who are part of an egg sharing arrangement, their nationality, treatment outcome and any complications (including OHSS) that they suffered as a consequence of their treatment and whether it records the incidence of OHSS and other complications affecting egg donors, excluding those in an egg sharing arrangement.

HFEA response

HFEA Licensed centres can report to the HFEA whether women registering as patients have travelled from overseas. This information can be linked to whether they take part in an egg sharing arrangement and the outcome of their treatment. HFEA Licensed centres are required to report to the HFEA a patient’s country of birth, however, nationality and country of residence cannot be reliably inferred from this.

With regards to any complications this category of patient or egg donor may suffer as a result of their treatment or donation, you might find it helpful to look on our website at the forms centres currently use to report information to the HFEA and identify from these any complications that you are interested in (http://www.hfea.gov.uk/fertility-clinic-forms.html ).

With regards to OHSS, the Authority does not hold data about the total number of egg donors or egg sharers who develop OHSS. The HFEA Register does not enable reliable identification of clinically confirmed cases of OHSS, however, centres are required to report to the HFEA some information about OHSS via adverse incident reports. The HFEA has issued a series of General Directions (http://www.hfea.gov.uk/188.html ) and Code of Practice guidance (http://www.hfea.gov.uk/2999.html) relating to the reporting of adverse incidents.

The current set of Directions defines an ‘adverse incident’ as including OHSS and since October 2009 centres have been required to report cases of OHSS that require a hospital admission and have a severity grading of severe or critical. We are aware that, although not required by Directions, centres also sometimes report when a donor or egg sharer has been involved and cases of only mild or moderate OHSS. We are also aware that some centres consistently report no adverse incidents. For these reasons we do not consider the number of reported cases to be the true incidence of OHSS in patients or donors.

Page last updated: 16 August 2012

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