UB Study Finds No Relationship Between Male Fertility and Eventual Diagnosis of Testicular Cancer

BALTIMORE -- A new University at Buffalo study has shown that the eventual development of testicular cancer appears to have no effect on the ability of these men to father children prior to diagnosis.

Scientists had speculated that testicular cancer may be initiated by some event that occurs during the male child's development in the uterus, said lead author Julie Baker, a graduate student in the Department of Social and Preventive Medicine in the UB School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.

If that were the case, she said, men who develop the disease later in life could have trouble fathering children in the interim.

In results of a study comparing fertility patterns in men with testicular cancer and nonhormonal cancers presented here today (June 9th) at the annual meeting of the Society for Epidemiologic Research, Baker reported no such relationship.

"This should be a bit of comforting news for men in their reproductive years," said Baker. "Not only did we find no relationship between fertility and a subsequent diagnosis of testicular cancer, men with the disease had more children on average prior to diagnosis than controls -- 2.3 compared to 1.2. This appears to be mainly because they were more likely to be married, compared to study participants who had never fathered a child."

The study involved 129 men with confirmed testicular cancer who were matched by age to men with cancers of nonhormonal origin -- skin, lung, colon, rectal and head/neck -- who formed the control group. All participants were seen at Roswell Park Cancer Institute, a comprehensive cancer center in Buffalo, N.Y., between 1982-98. They completed questionnaires that included information on several lifestyle factors, including the number of offspring.

Analysis of data from both groups of cancer patients showed that those with testicular cancer were 75 percent more likely than controls to have fathered at least one child, in addition to having more children on average.

The researchers also analyzed the ratio of boys to girls born to these men, a statistic called the secondary sex ratio (the number of boys to girls conceived is considered the primary sex ratio). They had theorized that a divergence from the normal pattern of 102 to 105 boys born for every 100 girls might occur in man who later would develop testicular cancer.

The data showed no significant differences between groups in the ratio of boys to girls, however.

Also participating in the study were Germaine M. Buck, Ph.D., associate professor; Kirsten B. Moysich, Ph.D., assistant professor, and Arthur Michalek, Ph.D., associate professor, all of the UB Department of Social and Preventive Medicine, and Nachimathu Natarajan, senior biostatistician at Roswell Park Cancer Institute.