These tools will no longer be maintained as of December 31, 2024. Archived website can be found here. PubMed4Hh GitHub repository can be found here. Contact NLM Customer Service if you have questions.


Pubmed for Handhelds

PUBMED FOR HANDHELDS

Search MEDLINE/PubMed

  • Title: Vasectomy and prostate cancer: is there a link?
    Author: Skegg D.
    Journal: N Z Med J; 1993 Jun 23; 106(958):242-3. PubMed ID: 8332290.
    Abstract:
    New Zealand had the highest prevalence of vasectomy in the world. A national survey conducted over the period 1983-86 found that 23% of married women aged 25-44 relied upon their husbands' vasectomies for contraception, while only 19% relied upon tubal ligation. It seems that in no other country male sterilization is more common than female sterilization. Vasectomy seems to be at least as effective as tubal ligation and is even less commonly followed by significant complications, despite unfounded scares over time about potential associations with the decreased production of testicular hormone, atherosclerosis, and testicular cancer. There is, however, current cause for concern that vasectomies potentially increase the risk of prostate cancer. Studies have shown the relative risk of prostate cancer to increase with the number of years since vasectomy. One may attribute these findings to chance, bias, confounding, or a causal relationship, with the first two factors being less likely. We have a poor understanding of the genesis of prostate cancer. The World Health Organization convened a meeting in October 1991 to review the existing biological and epidemiological evidence for any such relationship. The organization recommended future research, but concluded that a causal relationship between vasectomy and risk of prostate cancer appeared unlikely and that changes to family planning policies were unwarranted. In New Zealand, however, where the prevalence of cancer before age 75; 400 men die annually. This high rate of mortality has increased in recent decades. Even though the verdict is still out on the link between vasectomy and prostate cancer, New Zealand doctors should be informing candidates for vasectomy about the possible link with prostate cancer, as well as about the risks and benefits of other contraceptive methods.
    [Abstract] [Full Text] [Related] [New Search]