Cardiovascular disease and vasectomy. Findings from two epidemiologic studies.

We performed two epidemiologic studies using routine abstracts of medical records to test the hypothesis that vasectomy may predispose men to cardiovascular disease. In a case-control study 1512 men who were under 55 years of age and had a history of myocardial infarction, stroke, or hypertension were matched with 3024 controls with other conditions; 2.4 per cent of the cases and 2.7 per cent of the controls were identified as having undergone vasectomy (risk ratio, 0.9; 95 per cent confidence limits, 0.6 to 1.3). In a cohort study data covering a mean period of 6 1/2 years after surgery were available on 1764 men who had had a vasectomy and on three comparison cohorts of men who had had other minor surgical procedures. There was no evidence of an increased risk of cardiovascular disease associated with vasectomy. There is no consistent evidence from our studies to support the hypothesis that in the short term vasectomy predisposes young men to cardiovascular disease.