Article

You may read headlines about vasectomy and prostate cancer. Here’s the balanced view:

• The AUA guideline states clinicians do not need to routinely counsel patients that vasectomy increases the risk of prostate cancer (or heart disease, stroke, dementia, testicular cancer).
  (Guideline Central)
• Recent systematic reviews found small statistical associations in some analyses, but these effects moved closer to no association in higher-quality studies—suggesting residual confounding (e.g., health-care seeking, PSA testing).
  (eu-openscience.europeanurology.com)

Bottom line: leading guidelines do not consider vasectomy a prostate-cancer risk. If you have questions about PSA screening based on age/family history, we’ll discuss evidence-based options.