ABSTRACT
General considerations Not much has been published on the costs induced by the occurrence of the ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS) as part of a treat ment with in vitro fertilization/intracytoplasmic sperm injection (IVF/ICSI) or as part of non-IVF treatments. In several of the more important papers on the cost-effectiveness of infertility treatment, no specific mention of the relative cost of OHSS is made1-6. In a paper by Philips et a l7 , IVF costs were analyzed in general and compared with other treatment options, and these authors estimated OHSS to yield an extra cost of 236.69 GBP (around €355) per unit, and the incidence of OHSS in their model was esti mated to be 4%. In their calculations, OHSS contributed 0.5% to the total cost of IVF. The costs they used, however, were not real costs, but were derived from a separate cost model.
