Congenital anomalies in children born after assisted reproduction in the Czech Republic: Population based study

Abstract

ABSTRACT No. P01.16D. INTRODUCTION: Assisted reproduction (AR) is nowadays commonly-used method for treating various fertility problems. However, several studies have shown a higher incidence of selected types of congenital anomalies among AR-conceived children. Our goal was to study this association on a large population cohorts (over 3 millions of live-births) using data from our population based registries. METHODS: Our retrospective epidemiological study is based on the official data from the National Registry of Congenital Anomalies and National Registry of assisted Reproduction (run by the Institute of the Health Information and Statistics of the Czech Republic). The registration process is population-wide and compulsory by national law. We evaluated the incidence of congenital anomalies (ICD-10 diagnoses Q00-Q99) in AR-conceived children and compared it to the incidence of congenital anomalies in naturally-conceived children. Time period: 2013-2015. RESULTS: The overall incidence of congenital anomalies was slightly higher in the AR-children group however, the difference was not statistically significant. The congenital anomalies were more common in twins (p<0.005). The incidence of congenital anomalies in AR-twins was significantly higher than the incidence of congenital anomalies in non-AR-twins (p<0.005) while the difference of congenital anomalies incidence in AR and non-AR singletons was not significant. DISCUSSION: We have found that the incidence of congenital anomalies was higher especially in twins born after assisted reproduction while in singletons the difference was not significant. We will further analyze this finding during the next phases of our population study.