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IMPACT OF VASECTOMY ON MORTALITY.

More than 15 percent of men in the U.S. over the age of 40 have had a vasectomy. Human and animal studies have suggested that a vasectomy may somehow accelerate the development of atherosclerosis and prostate cancer. A large retrospective cohort study evaluates this issue.

Researchers compared 14,607 men who had undergone vasectomies with an equal number of men who had not; all men were husbands of women enrolled in the Nurses Health Study. Multivariate analyses controlling for the effects of smoking, body mass, alcohol use, and education revealed that vasectomy was associated with a reduction in mortality from all causes (relative risk, 0.85). This reduction was largely attributable to lower mortality from cardiovascular disease and was unrelated to mortality from cancer. However, among men whose vasectomies had been performed at least 20 years earlier, there was no reduction in all-cause mortality (RR, 1.1), and mortality from cancer, primarily lung cancer, actually increased (RR, 1.4).

Since this was not a controlled trial, the associations cannot be assumed to be causal. The safest inference to be drawn is that vasectomy does not affect mortality. The possible link with lung cancer requires further study.

— ALK

Published in Journal Watch General Medicine May 29, 1992

Citation(s):

Giovannucci E et al. A long-term study of mortality in men who have undergone vasectomy. N Engl J Med 1992 May 21 326 1392-1398.

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