Vasectomy does not appear to be associated with prostate cancer mortality or prostate cancer incidence, according to findings from a large U.S. prospective cohort of men aged 40 years or older.
Prostate cancer mortality was examined in the overall Cancer Prevention Study II (CPS-II) cohort of 363,726 men, including 7,451 who died as a result of prostate cancer between 1982 and 2012, and no association was found with vasectomy (hazard ratio, 1.01).
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Overall and high-grade prostate cancer incidence rates were examined among 66,542 men from the CPS-II Nutrition cohort subgroup, including 9,133 who were diagnosed with prostate cancer between 1991 and 2011, and again no associations were found with vasectomy (HR, 1.02 and 0.91, respectively), Eric J. Jacobs, PhD, and his colleagues at the American Cancer Society report (J Clin Oncol. 2016 Sep 19. doi: 10.1200/JCO.2015.66.2361).
Results were similar after adjusting for years since vasectomy and in analyses restricted to men aged 50 years and older, the investigators noted.
Findings from prior, smaller studies have been conflicting, but the current study – the largest-known study to date to examine the association between vasectomy and prostate cancer, according to the authors – provides “some reassurance that vasectomy is unlikely to meaningfully increase risk of prostate cancer,” they wrote.
The authors reported having no disclosures.