Abstract
In the past 5 years, over 700,000 IVF cycles have been performed in the USA. The ultimate goal for infertile couples and reproductive endocrinologists is to deliver healthy babies. A body of literature has incriminated tobacco smoke as a risk factor for lower success rates. There are a total of 30 published studies on women and eight for men that have found a significant association between smoking and IVF end points. There are no studies specifically addressing when to stop smoking before pursuing IVF, for how long, the quantity of cigarettes that affect IVF cycles, the effects of passive tobacco smoke, and how long after quitting smoking do fertility levels resume to nonsmoker levels. Currently, there are no formal guidelines in the USA regarding smoking cessation prior to attempting IVF. It would be premature to require women and men to give up smoking before being offered IVF at this time until more research is concluded and professional guidelines are established.
Acknowledgements
Hillary Klonoff-Cohen would like to thank Jennifer Le, Oliver Refugio, Tiffani Phan and Cathy Le for their technical assistance on this manuscript.
Financial & competing interests disclosure
This research was supported by grant number 4RT0032 from the University of California, Office of the President, Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program. The author has no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.
No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.