A flurry of publicity recently scared millions of men and caused the government to organize major studies to investigate whether or not a link exists between vasectomy and prostate cancer. Good news: There is no evidence that a vasectomy increases a man’s risk of prostate cancer. So why, then, does it seem that so many men who have had a vasectomy are diagnosed with prostate cancer? For one thing, a vasectomy is common, and a lot of men out there have had one. For another, as an editorial in the Journal of the American Medical Association pointed out, “most vasectomies are performed by urologists and most prostate cancers are diagnosed by urologists, often during procedures to evaluate genitourinary tract symptoms. Therefore, men who have undergone vasectomy may be more likely to have their prostate cancers diagnosed.” In other words, because these men have a prior relationship with a urologist, they’re more likely to return to a urologist for urinary symptoms and have their cancer diagnosed.
The official word on this, from the National Institutes of Health’s panel on vasectomy and the risk of prostate cancer, is: If you’ve had a vasectomy, don’t be alarmed; you’re not at cancer’s doorstep. “At the present time, providers shall continue to offer vasectomy vasectomy reversal is not warranted to prevent prostate cancer, and screening for prostate cancer should not be any different for men who have had a vasectomy than for men who have not.” The doctors on this panel felt the results of research on this subject were “inconsistent,” and that the associations drawn from it were weak. They, too, cited “a strong potential for detection bias,” because of “possible differences in the use of health care services by men who have had vasectomies that resulted in a different rate of detection.”
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