Is there an increased Prostate Cancer Risk After Vasectomy?
In 1993, a noted team of Harvard epidemiologists published findings from two large studies in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). One of these studies was retrospective (backward-looking), while the other was prospective and followed new patients. Both found vasectomy to be associated with a moderately elevated relative risk of prostate cancer that increased with time after the procedure. After more than 20 years, a vasectomized man appeared to be twice as likely to develop prostate cancer as a nonvasectomized man of the same age. Although this conclusion may seem startling, scientists generally consider risk findings of this magnitude to be of doubtful significance. The studies were examined by experts in several professional organizations as well as in a JAMA article. The authors of this article concluded that the studies could neither be relied upon nor ignored and that further research was essential. These authors pointed out that, since the causes of prostate c
