Study fails to link vasectomy to cancer. (Epidemiology).A medical riddle that arose more than a decade ago is now closer to resolution. Three studies in the early 1990s suggested that men who had undergone vasectomy vasectomy, male sterilization by surgical excision of the vas deferens, the thin duct that carries sperm cells from the testicles to the prostate and the penis. seemed more apt to get prostate cancer prostate cancer, cancer originating in the prostate gland. Prostate cancer is the leading malignancy in men in the United States and is second only to lung cancer as a cause of cancer death in men. than were men who hadn't had the procedure. Other studies found no connection, but uncertainty has lingered. Researchers in New Zealand New Zealand (zē`lənd), island country (2005 est. pop. 4,035,000), 104,454 sq mi (270,534 sq km), in the S Pacific Ocean, over 1,000 mi (1,600 km) SE of Australia. The capital is Wellington; the largest city and leading port is Auckland. report in the June 19 Journal of the American Medical Association JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association is an international peer-reviewed general medical journal, published 48 times per year by the American Medical Association. JAMA is the most widely circulated medical journal in the world. that men with prostate cancer are no more likely to have had a vasectomy than healthy men are. Between 1996 and 1998, the researchers scoured data from a national cancer registry and located 923 men between the ages of 40 and 74 who had had prostate cancer at some point. The scientists matched these men with 1,224 men of similar age who hadn't had prostate cancer. Follow-up interviews revealed that roughly one-fourth of the men in both groups had had a vasectomy, says study coauthor Brian Cox, a medical epidemiologist at the University of Otago The University of Otago (Māori: Te Whare Wānanga o Otāgo) in Dunedin is New Zealand's oldest university with over 20,000 students enrolled during 2006. School of Medicine in Dunedin. Also, roughly equal portions of men in each group had had their vasectomies at least 25 years before the study, indicating that the operation imparts no longterm risk of cancer. "The findings of our study provide very strong evidence that no increased risk of prostrate pros·trate tr.v. pros·trat·ed, pros·trat·ing, pros·trates 1. To put or throw flat with the face down, as in submission or adoration: cancer from vasectomy exists," says Cox. "I think a lot of people breathed a sigh of relief when they saw this," says Steven C. Kaufman, a physician and epidemiologist at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development in Bethesda, Md., which partially funded the study.--N.S. |
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