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Bennett Fertility Institute at INTEGRIS Ranks in Top 5% Nationwide
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May 8, 2007
OKLAHOMA CITY - Infertility is a very common condition, affecting 10 percent of American couples. It causes significant stress, which rivals that caused by cancer and other serious illnesses. While the rate of infertility has not increased significantly, the number of couples seeking medical help is on the rise. With the advent of the Internet, couples have information at their fingertips and realize they have several options.
Unlike other areas of medicine where data on success rates of treatment is often not available, pregnancy rates of complex infertility procedures such as in-vitro fertilization (IVF) are accessible to the general public. Success rates are a very important aspect of infertility treatments.
Recently, the Society for Assisted Reproduction (SART) published the nation-wide pregnancy success rates for IVF for the year 2005. SART collects data from most IVF clinics in the U.S. and publishes them annually on its Web site, www.sart.org.
The success rates of the Bennett Fertility Institute at INTEGRIS Baptist Medical Center, expressed as live-births per IVF procedure, place it among the top 5 percent of programs in the country. “We are very proud of our success rates,” asserts Dr. Eli Reshef, a board-certified reproductive endocrinologist who serves as the institute’s medical director. “But we use these statistics primarily to inform our patients of our performance rather than to compare ourselves to other programs. Each IVF program has a different mix of patients and comparisons based on national statistics may not be valid. Nevertheless, we are proud to provide consistently superior results year after year right here in Oklahoma.”
“One of our key strengths is the compassionate care of patients by our nursing staff,” adds Dr. David Kallenberger, BFI’s program director and one of its founding members. “They are a key to confidently guiding anxious patients through the maze of complex procedures.” The Bennett Fertility Institute at INTEGRIS Baptist Medical Center was established in 1984, when IVF treatment in the U.S. was in its infancy. The first IVF baby at BFI was born in 1986. Since then, more than a thousand babies have been born as a result of IVF treatment at BFI. Dr. Kallenberger calls the institute ‘an Oklahoma Treasure.’ “Through state-of-the-art treatments, we are privileged to help Oklahoma couples achieve their dream of taking home a baby.” He adds, “We do so not only with superb technical prowess but also with compassionate and individualized care.”
Dr. Reshef emphasizes the vast experience of BFI’s doctors, nurses, and the laboratory staff. “Our three physicians and our Ph.D. laboratory director alone have more than 100 years of combined experience in the field of infertility, the most of any such clinic in the state of Oklahoma. We are able to combine this experience with some of the latest developments in the field of assisted reproduction in order to help our infertile patients.”
BFI provides advanced services such as IVF, egg and sperm donation, embryo and sperm freezing, and artificial insemination. Recently, laser treatment of the embryo for assisted hatching and a special freezing technique called “vitrification” were added to BFI’s list of services.
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INTEGRIS Health Corporate Communications
3030 N.W. Expressway
Suite 1620
Oklahoma City, 73112
(405) 951-4826 |
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