A cross-sectional study of vasectomy, time since vasectomy and prostate cancer

Abstract

Past studies of the association of vasectomy and prostate cancer have reported inconsistent results. Our objective was to investigate whether vasectomy and time since vasectomy are associated with a higher risk of prostate cancer. We conducted a cross-sectional study on unduplicated records of b 95 000 participants in a longitudinal study (1993±1995) of prostate cancer screening conducted during Prostate Cancer Awareness Week. Vasectomy was reported by 28%, and there were 2530 biopsies. w 2 tests and logistic regression analyses were used and found that vasectomy and an increased length of time since vasectomy are not associated with a higher risk of prostate cancer.

Vasectomy and prostate cancer risk: a meta-analysis of cohort studies

“…After screening the abstracts or titles, most of them were excluded, because they were case-control studies, letters and reviews, or the exposure and endpoint were not linked to our study or they were duplicate publications. After that, 10 cohort studies involving more than 7027 cases and 429914 participants were included 5 6 8 13 14 15 16 19 20 21 .…”

“…The publication years of them ranged 1991 to 2014. Of them, 6 were conducted among American males 5 8 13 14 16 19 , 1 in England 20 and Brazil 15 , 2 in Denmark 6 21 , respectively. 2 studies were based on all years old populations 6 19 , 6 studies were conducted among the middle-aged and elderly populations 5 8 14 15 16 20 , but the other 2 studies did not report this 13 21 .…”

“…The subgroup-analysis showed that the relationship between vasectomy and prostate cancer risk was not significantly modified by the length of follow-up and population distribution except American males. This result was not wondrous, because 6 studies 5 8 13 14 16 19 including the 3 studies 5 8 16 which found a significant positive relationship between vasectomy and prostate cancer risk were conducted among American men, however, the other studies which were based on the non-American males did not report similar positive results.…”

“…Moreover, the evidence was limited because case-control studies and only a few cohort studies were included, which would lead to more confound factors and biases. In addition, some cohort studies 13 14 were not included in the previous studies and some newly emerging cohort studies have observed this association recently 15 16 . With the accumulating evidences, we conducted an update meta-analysis of cohort studies to improve understanding and re-estimate the association between vasectomy and prostate cancer risk.…”

Vasectomy and prostate cancer risk: a historical synopsis of undulating false causality

“…Their results suggested a slightly increased risk of prostate cancer in men who had had a vasectomy; however, the data were not statistically significant, and the relationship was determined to be noncausal. The same year, DeAntoni et al 46 performed a large cohort study that ultimately found no association between prostate cancer and vasectomy. These results were supported by a study of Lesko et al 47 in 1999, who performed a case–control study that reported no correlation at all between prostate cancer and vasectomy.…”