Does vasectomy cause prostate cancer?
[No authors listed]PIP: Vasectomy is the process in which a man’s vas deferens are severed, with the cut ends folded back and tied off to prevent the release of sperm from his testicles to the urethra and out of the penis. The procedure may be conducted in a doctor’s office under local anesthesia, is almost 100% effective in preventing pregnancy, and leaves sexual function fully intact. Since sperm comprise less than 5% of semen, even the amount of ejaculated fluid does not change noticeably. 20% of American men over age 35 years have had a vasectomy. Despite vasectomy’s simplicity and effectiveness, debate exists over whether vasectomy may increase the risk of prostate cancer, the most common malignancy in men. Two large, well-designed Harvard studies were published in 1993 in the Journal of the American Medical Association which suggest that such a relationship may exist. The two studies compared the number of prostate-cancer diagnoses in almost 25,000 men who had undergone vasectomy
