Best Practices in In Vitro Fertilization

Bradley J. Van Voorhis, MD

I am pleased to serve as the guest editor of this edition of Seminars in Reproductive Medicine pertaining to best practices in in vitro fertilization (IVF). I have been privileged to practice in a field of medicine that has changed rapidly over my career with exciting innovation both in the laboratory and clinical practice. Nowhere is that change more evident than in the practice of IVF where continuous improvement is the standard that we have enjoyed for several decades. I am grateful to have assembled a world-class panel of experts in the field and challenged them to provide evidence-based recommendations on best practices in IVF today. Because of their extensive experience, I also asked that when the evidence is lacking, each provide their expert opinion regarding unusual and difficult situations we all face. I believe this edition represents a snapshot of the current state of the assisted reproductive technology (ART). There is no question that because our field is advancing rapidly, best practices today may be, and hopefully will be, different in several years. Nevertheless, the recommendations in this edition are timely and I hope will lead to improved patient care in centers around the world. I have deliberately omitted one important area of IVF in this edition, which is embryo selection and preimplantation genetic diagnosis and screening. This is a particularly rapidly changing area with new evidence emerging on virtually a daily basis. In addition, this was the subject in a recent issue of Seminars in Reproductive Medicine and therefore was not included in this edition to avoid redundancy. I hope the readers of this edition will enjoy and benefit from the thoughtful contributions of this outstanding panel of authors.