Seven cancers are particularly present in men who cannot have children.
- Infertile men may have few sperm (oligozoospermic) or none at all (azoospermic).
- When researchers looked at all families of azoospermic men, they found within this entity a significant increase in the risk of five cancers.
- The families of severely oligozoospermic men presented a significantly increased risk of three cancers.
For the first time, researchers have identified precisely which cancers are associated with different infertility problems in men. Infertile men may have few sperm (oligozoospermic) or none at all (azoospermic).
7 cancers threaten infertile men
When researchers looked at all families of azoospermic men, they found a significant increase in the risk of five cancers within this entity: bone and joint cancer (156% increased risk), soft tissue cancers such as sarcomas (56% increased risk), uterine cancers (27% increased risk), Hodgkin lymphoma (60% increased risk) and thyroid cancers (54% increased risk). .
Families of severely oligozoospermic men had a significantly increased risk of three cancers: colon cancer (16% increased risk), bone and joint cancer (143% increased risk), and testicular cancer (16% increased risk). increased risk by 134%). The researchers also found a 61% reduction in the risk of esophageal cancer in this population.
To achieve these results, scientists retrieved semen analyzes performed between 1996 and 2017 on 786 men attending ART clinics in Utah. They then compared them to medical information from 5,674 fertile men who had had at least one child. Of the men with fertility problems, 426 were azoospermic and 360 were severely oligozoospermic (with fewer than 1.5 million sperm per milliliter of semen).
Cancer and infertility: what are the mechanisms involved?
The researchers, led by Dr Joemy Ramsay, professor at the University of Utah (United States), hope that their results will provide a better understanding of the biological mechanisms involved in cancer and infertility.
It would also allow doctors to more accurately predict the risk of cancer in men with fertility problems, and thus improve the advice that could be given to them.
In France, one in four couples are infertile
In France, one in four couples today have difficulty conceiving a child, a figure that has been steadily increasing for thirty years (by 0.3% per year for women and 0.4% for men). According to the Biomedicine Agency, the proportion of children conceived via medically assisted procreation (PMA) among those born each year on our soil has therefore increased constantly since 2009 (3.3% in 2018 compared to 2.6% in this date).
Within France, the estimated number of new cases of cancer in 2023 is 433,136 (57% among men, 43% among women), and the number of deaths from cancer in 2018 is 157,400 (57% among men, 43% among women). These pathologies constitute the second cause of mortality in the world.
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