Myth-Information: Vasectomies, The Vasectomy Procedure & Side Effects

Not everything you read on the Internet or hear on the news about vasectomy is true. When you see an outrageous headline on the cover of a supermarket tabloid, you probably can easily recognize the information as false. But are you careful to question information you find on the Web or in your morning paper? The Internet provides a convenient venue for myths, misinformation, and unproven factoids to travel across the globe at the speed of light - and the media is often quick to disseminate controversial "news". Here are some examples of misleading reports about vasectomy side effects and other topics that you may be hearing through the grapevine:

Is there a link between vasectomy and dementia?

Tales about a potential link between vasectomy and dementia are spreading quickly throughout the Internet and news media - all because of one very small study involving only 104 patients, which even the authors describe as preliminary.¹ The study was prompted by a report from one man who linked the onset of his word-finding difficulty at age 43 to the period after his vasectomy. In this study, researchers at Northwestern University found that men with primary progressive aphasia (PPA), a form of dementia, were more likely to report having undergone a vasectomy than men without PPA. The study, which included 47 men with the disease and 57 men without any cognitive impairment, consisted of researchers simply asking the men whether or not they had undergone a vasectomy procedure. Forty percent of the men in the group that had the mental disorder reported having undergone vasectomy while only 16% of the men without the mental condition said that they had undergone a vasectomy. The authors admit that it could be argued that men with dementia are not capable of providing reliable information about whether or not they had undergone a vasectomy, and no confirmation from the men’s medical records was obtained. The bottom line is that there’s no solid evidence that having a vasectomy would increase your chance of developing dementia.
Does vasectomy increase your risk of getting prostate cancer?

The Internet and press were quick to sound the alarm bell warning that a couple of studies conducted in the early 1990s^2-4 suggested an increased risk of prostate cancer among men who underwent vasectomy. Since then, many other studies have been performed to see if there is any link between vasectomy and prostate cancer, and their results indicate that there is no increased risk of prostate cancer after vasectomy.^5-9

One study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2002, investigated the prostate cancer risk associated with vasectomies by looking at 923 men between the ages of 40 and 74 years with newly diagnosed prostate cancer. The study compared them to a control group of 1224 randomly selected men without vasectomies. Both groups were interviewed by telephone. The results of this study stated that there was no association between prostate cancer risk and vasectomy, even 25 years or more after the vasectomy occurred.¹⁰ A much larger study conducted in England in 2005 compared 24,773 men who had undergone vasectomy with 159,480 men without vasectomy. The researchers found no increased risk, after vasectomy, of cancer of the prostate, cancer of the testis, or any other cancer.¹¹

A study published in 2008 in the Journal of Urology added further weight to prior studies showing that vasectomy is not associated with an increased risk of developing prostate cancer.¹² This clinical study was conducted at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center and the University of Washington and compared more than 1000 men recently diagnosed with prostate cancer against 942 men without prostate cancer. The study volunteers were well matched demographically regarding important factors known to be related to the risk of prostate cancer. After interviewing all of the men in the study, the researchers could find no difference in the number of men in either group who had previously undergone vasectomy. In both groups, 36% had previously undergone vasectomy for sterilization. Furthermore, those who had undergone vasectomy at a young age showed no increased subsequent risk of developing prostate cancer versus either the men who had undergone vasectomy later in life or the men who had never undergone vasectomy.¹²

In sum, multiple studies have been performed (many of which were quite large and carefully constructed) that have shown no association between vasectomy and prostate cancer. These studies found that men who had undergone vasectomy had no higher chance of getting prostate cancer than the average man.

Is Vasectomy Linked to Immune-Related Diseases?
Bloggers have exchanged hearsay about the possible connection between vasectomy and immune-related diseases. However, a recent large study, with many years of follow-up, found no evidence that vasectomy increases the subsequent long-term risk of immune-related diseases, including asthma, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, inflammatory bowel disease, or rheumatoid arthritis.¹³ For more information about this study, click here. For a Health NewsFeed about this study from the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, click here.

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Additional Information