Vasectomy health fears soothed

Prostate cancer may need radiotherapy treatment

Men undergoing 'the snip' are not more likely to develop prostate cancer, according to a massive research programme.

The vasectomy procedure, which renders the man infertile by cutting the tubes to the sperm-producing testicles, had been linked to the disease by an earlier study.

But the five-year study commissioned by the National Cancer Institute found no significant evidence that this was the case.

It also found that dietary supplements of zinc and vitamins C and E sharply reduced the incidence of prostate cancer.

The study looked at almost 1,500 men aged 40 to 64, and found that while vasectomy patients had a very slightly increased risk, the difference was not enough to make it important.

'Reassuring to patients'

Janet Stanford, who heads the Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre's work into the link, said: "This is an important public health question and we believe that our results will be reassuring to physicians performing the procedure and to couples selecting vasectomies for contraception."

Professor Jonathan Waxman: "Not logical"

Professor Jonathan Waxman, the chairman of the Prostate Cancer Charity, which offers advice about the condition, said the theory about a link to vasectomy had now been de-bunked.

He said: "It's something that has been talked about for ages and ages. However, logically, there cannot be any connection whatsoever."

He said that the main risk factors for developing the disease appeared to by diet related - with vegetarians only half as likely to get it.

Vasectomies became more widely used in the 1960s as a way of permanently ending male fertility.

The surgeon cuts a tube called the vas deferens which carries sperm from the testicles to the ejaculatory canal.

Some men do successfully have operations to re-link the tubes at a later date, but this is still an uncommon procedure.

Prostate cancer is the most common male-only cancer in the UK.

About 17,000 men a year are diagnosed with prostate cancer and approximately 9,500 die.

80% of over-80s have it

It is estimated that 80% of men over the age of 80 have prostate cancer, although in most cases, these men will die from other causes than prostate cancer.

A blood test which can help detect the disease does exist, and there are calls for a national screening programme to be introduced.

Advocates, like Professor Waxman, say that it would cost the NHS, on average, £13,000 for every case diagnosed - compared to much more for cervical cancer.

There has been criticism that only a fraction of the millions spent on breast cancer research is spent on prostate cancer research.

More information about prostate cancer is available from the Prostate Cancer Charity's helpline on [phone].