Snip away, men — a vasectomy won’t increase your prostate cancer risk

Breathe easy, boys – getting a vasectomy doesn’t increase your risk of prostate cancer after all.

As if getting snipped wasn’t scary enough, a small 2014 study suggested a link between cutting the tubes that transport sperm to the penis and developing advanced or lethal cases of the cancer. But now scientists from the American Cancer Society have given that old research the shaft.

The new study published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology

analyzed data from almost 364,000 men in a cancer-prevention study from 1982 to 2012. Some 42,000 of them had a vasectomy, and 7,451 died of prostate cancer — compared to the 2014 report that looked at just 800 cancer deaths.

The ACS researchers found no difference between the rates of prostate cancer diagnosis or death between the patients who had vasectomies and those who didn’t. There was also no difference in what stage the prostate cancer was diagnosed, or the aggressiveness of the cancer.

“The overall weight of all of the evidence is that vasectomy is unlikely to meaningfully increase risk of any type of prostate cancer,” said Dr. Eric Jacobs, who led the study.

The experts guess that more cases of prostate cancer were maybe detected in men who’ve had vasectomies because these guys often get more medical check-ups below the belt, which would detect more cancers.

So snip away, fellas, with one less thing to worry about. And if you want to continue to reduce your prostate cancer risk, which is the second most common cancer among men, maintain a healthy weight — and quit smoking.