A vasectomy is a minor surgical procedure that renders a man sterile. During the operation, the doctor cuts off the path of the vas deferens (vas deferens – the “tube” that carries sperm from the testicles). Every man has two vas deferens – one for each testicle. Once the sperm pathway is blocked, the man ceases to have fertility. Now, a new study shows that such an intervention may be much more dangerous to health than we imagined. Scientists from the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts, found that it is associated with the occurrence of prostate cancer. This is especially true for men over the age of 35, where the risk of disease is highest. The even more frightening point in the study is that the disease worsens and the tumor becomes many times more aggressive than before in men suffering from prostate cancer who undergo surgery. NEWS_MORE_BOX The study involved nearly 50,000 Americans followed between 1986 and 2013. One in four participants had already experienced a vasectomy. It turned out that their risk of disease was 10 percent higher if they had not been sick before and reached 20 percent if the insidious disease had already been diagnosed. “This research does not oblige men to abandon their intention to have a vasectomy. However, it is clearly not at all safe for health, and therefore patients should be very well informed about its risks before taking such an important step,” says Dr. Catherine Wilson. She recalls that according to statistics, prostate cancer is the leading cause of death among men in the United States.