Source: Guardian >> Read full article and comment
By Denis Campbell, health correspondent
Infertile men 2.6 times as likely as others to suffer from aggressive form of disease, according to research
Infertile men have a much higher risk than normal of developing an aggressive form of prostate cancer, according to medical researchers. Men unable to father children are 2.6 times as likely to suffer from high-grade prostate cancer, which is more dangerous because it grows and spreads quickly.
Research published in Cancer, the journal of the American Cancer Society, made the link between the two conditions after studying 22,562 men who were assessed for infertility in California between 1967 and 1998.
“The results of the current study provide novel evidence of a potential link between male factor infertility and aggressive prostate cancer risk,” said a team led by Dr Thomas Walsh, of the University of Washington school of medicine in Seattle. “Male infertility may be an early and identifiable risk factor for the development of clinically significant prostate cancer.”
It may be useful to screen infertile men for prostate cancer to identify and treat those with the riskier form of the disease, the authors suggest.
There is no prostate cancer screening in the UK, though government advisers are looking into whether a programme should be set up.
The disease is the most common cancer among British men. About 35,000 a year are diagnosed with it, and it kills about 10,200. The most common risk factors are believed to be age, family history and ethnicity: those of west African and Caribbean origin are at greater risk than white men…..Continue reading
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