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Query: UMLS:C0004153 (atherosclerosis)
 77,401 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Family physicians should be aware of the potential effects and complications of vasectomy so they can appropriately counsel patients seeking sterilization. Vasectomy produces anatomic, hormonal and immunologic changes and, although not substantiated by clinical studies, has been reputed to be associated with atherosclerosis, prostate cancer, testicular cancer and urolithiasis. Complications of vasectomy include overt failure, occasional sperm in the ejaculate, hematoma, bleeding, infection, sperm granuloma, congestive epididymitis, antisperm antibody formation and psychogenic impotence. Compared with tubal ligation, vasectomy has fewer serious complications and a comparable failure rate.
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PMID:Complications of vasectomy. 823 40

Chlamydia are obligate intracellular eubacteria that are phylogenetically separated from other bacterial divisions. C. trachomatis and C. pneumoniae are both pathogens of humans but differ in their tissue tropism and spectrum of diseases. C. pneumoniae is a newly recognized species of Chlamydia that is a natural pathogen of humans, and causes pneumonia and bronchitis. In the United States, approximately 10% of pneumonia cases and 5% of bronchitis cases are attributed to C. pneumoniae infection. Chronic disease may result following respiratory-acquired infection, such as reactive airway disease, adult-onset asthma and potentially lung cancer. In addition, C. pneumoniae infection has been associated with atherosclerosis. C. trachomatis infection causes trachoma, an ocular infection that leads to blindness, and sexually transmitted diseases such as pelvic inflammatory disease, chronic pelvic pain, ectopic pregnancy and epididymitis. Although relatively little is known about C. trachomatis biology, even less is known concerning C. pneumoniae. Comparison of the C. pneumoniae genome with the C. trachomatis genome will provide an understanding of the common biological processes required for infection and survival in mammalian cells. Genomic differences are implicated in the unique properties that differentiate the two species in disease spectrum. Analysis of the 1,230,230-nt C. pneumoniae genome revealed 214 protein-coding sequences not found in C. trachomatis, most without homologues to other known sequences. Prominent comparative findings include expansion of a novel family of 21 sequence-variant outer-membrane proteins, conservation of a type-III secretion virulence system, three serine/threonine protein kinases and a pair of parologous phospholipase-D-like proteins, additional purine and biotin biosynthetic capability, a homologue for aromatic amino acid (tryptophan) hydroxylase and the loss of tryptophan biosynthesis genes.
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PMID:Comparative genomes of Chlamydia pneumoniae and C. trachomatis. 1019 88

Vasectomy has been recognized as a simple and highly effective contraceptive method. In order to recommend further research on vasectomy, researchers conducted a systematic review of the literature on the safety and effectiveness of vasectomy between 1964 and 1998. Early failure rates are 1%; however, effectiveness and complications vary with experience of surgeons and surgical technique. Early complications, which include hematoma, infection, sperm granulomas, epididymitis-orchitis, and congestive epididymitis, occur in 1-6% of men undergoing vasectomy. Incidence of epididymal pain is poorly documented. Animal and human data suggest that vasectomy does not increase atherosclerosis and that increases in circulating immune complexes following vasectomy are transient. The weight of the evidence regarding prostate and testicular cancer suggests that men with vasectomy are not at increased risk of these diseases. The findings indicate that publications to date continue to support the conclusion that vasectomy is a highly effective form of contraception. Future research should include evaluations of the long-term effectiveness of this method, evaluating criteria for post-vasectomy discontinuation of alternative contraception for use in settings where semen analysis is not practical, and characterizing complications including chronic epididymal pain.
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PMID:Safety and effectiveness of vasectomy. 1126 66

The chief of the women's health and fertility branch of the Centers for Disease Control's Division of Reproductive Health in Atlanta, Georgia and other reproductive health specialists have determined that vasectomies are very safe and adequately protect against pregnancy. The most common method to occlude the vas deferens is ligation. If the clinician ties the ligatures too tightly or loosely, sperm can enter adjacent tissues causing sperm granulomas and fistulous tracts. Up to 40% of vasectomies result in sperm granulomas, consisting of sperm, epithelial cells, and lymphocytes, either at the vasectomy site or the epididymis. This condition can cause the vas ends to rejoin spontaneously. Coagulation of the vas mucosa reduces sperm granulomas but it makes it more difficult for clinicians to perform vasectomy reversal. Reversal is more likely to occur if the interval between vasectomy and reversal procedure is 10 years. Vasectomy failure rates vary from 0% to 2%. Failures tend to happen because men fail to use a condom soon after the procedure or the vas has rejoined spontaneously. So the Association for Voluntary Surgical Contraception suggests that couples practice other family planning methods for the 1st 15 ejaculations after vasectomy or for 6 weeks after vasectomy. As of late 1990, 160,000 men had undergone a vasectomy and only 2 died from the procedure. 1 man suffered scrotal hematoma formation and infection while the other man died from general anesthesia when his health provider had to drain a scrotal hematoma which developed after the vasectomy. Hematomas tend to happen when physicians with no to limited experience perform the vasectomy (4.6% for physicians who do 1-10 vasectomies/year vs. 1.6% for 50 vasectomies/year). Overall hematoma incidence is 2%. Infections are limited to 2% of vasectomies. Epididymitis occurs even more rarely than infection (1%). Vasectomy does not appear to be correlated with increased risk of atherosclerosis or urogenital tract disease.
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PMID:Serious complications after vasectomy rare, experts say. 1231 90

Studies based on experimental vasectomies clearly reveal marked species differences in response to vasectomy. In rats, vasectomy invariably results in granuloma formation at the surgical site. In rabbits, immune-complex orchitis develops. Allergic orchitis may also develop in guinea pigs, and the morphological lesions can be adoptively transferred. My co-workers and I have been able to study systematically, biochemically, hormonally, pathologically, and immunologically, primates vasectomized up to 14 years earlier and to compare them with age-matched controls. We have monitored antibody levels in vasectomized rhesus and cynomolgus macaques by sperm-agglutination, sperm-immobilization, and indirect immunofluorescence techniques. Antibodies develop in almost every monkey, in some as early as 10 days after vasectomy. About 50% retain such circulating antisperm antibodies. In men, antibody development is less rapid, and about half of vasectomized men reveal detectable levels. Testicular histopathological studies have revealed detectable levels. Testicular histopathological studies have revealed orchitis, aspermatogenesis, or both, resembling allergic orchitis in most of the vasectomized monkeys and in about one-fourth of the controls. Limited studies of human material reveal some testicular changes. Epididymitis and epididymal granuloma occur exclusively in the vasectomized animals. Use of immunofluorescence has revealed significantly more granular deposits of IgA, IgG, and/or C3 in the basal lamina of the ductus efferens and the caput epididymidis of the vasectomized monkeys. Similar studies on human material have not been done. Both cynomolgus and rhesus macaques have proved to be excellent models for research in atherosclerosis and so have been used to determine whether constant sperm antigen leakage causes immune-complex formation that might result in arteritis and atherosclerosis. Evaluation of the cardiovascular systems from such animals has revealed that vasectomized monkeys have more frequent, more extensive, and more severe arteriosclerosis than age-matched controls. Epidemiological studies are currently under way to determine whether such an effect also occurs in men after vasectomy.
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PMID:Primates: Their use in research on vasectomy. 3199 29