Azoospermia Increases Overall Cancer Risk in Men

A new study shows that men who start producing less sperm at a younger age may be at a greater risk for cancer.

Researchers at Stanford university found that men diagnosed with azoospermia, commonly referred to as "no sperm count", prior to age 30, could be as much as eight times more likely to develop cancer than the general population.

"An azoospermic man's risk for developing cancer is similar to that for a typical man 10 years older," lead researcher Dr. Michael Eisenberg, assistant professor of urology at the medical school and director of male reproductive medicine and surgery at Stanford Hospital & Clinics, said in a new release.

It's estimated that approximately 4 million American men are infertile, and researchers believe that 600,000 men are azoospermic, with 1 percent of those men predicted to be infertile at younger reproductive ages.

Researchers examined 2,238 infertile men who visited the Texas andrology clinic from 1989 to 2009. The median age was 35.7 when they were first evaluated on infertility, and of those men, 451 had azoopermia, and 1,787 did not. 

Semen samples were provided, and the men were followed for an average of 6.7 years, according to the study. Results showed that 29 of the participants developed cancer over a 5.8-year period from their semen analysis to their cancer diagnosis. This contrasted with an expected 16.7 cases on an age-adjusted basis for the male Texas population in general, which is similar to cancer incident rates for the entire U.S. population.

After comparing the cancer risk of azoospermic and non-azoospermic infertile men,  researchers believe that azoopermic men are at a substantially elevated risk.

The findings were published June 20 in the journal Fertility and Sterility.