China develops alternative to vasectomy

22 November, 2007

Doctors in China have developed a new birth-control surgery for men which would be an alternative to the conventional vasectomy.

According to the new technique, developed by doctors in Guangzhou, a small incision is made along the testicle and then a tiny tube, about the size of a match, is placed into the opening.

The official China Daily quoted Wu Weixiong, director of Guangzhou Family Planning Technology Centre, as saying that tube functions as a filter that blocks sperm.

The new surgery has already been patented, and the Chinese health department will promote it as soon as it is approved by China’s National Food and Drug Administration.

The new birth-control technique for men could be made available to the public from 2008 onwards.

Zhu Jiaming, vice-president of the Guangzhou Sexology Association, said the success rate for the new form of birth control is 97%, the newspaper reported.

The tube inserted into the testicle can be removed any time without adversely affecting a man’s sexual health, Zhu Jiaming added.

The new birth-control surgery for men takes only 10 minutes, according to Wu Weixiong. However, he added, the procedure is “very difficult and requires highly skilled doctors.”

At present, Wu Weixiong said, only a few hospitals in China have the staff and facilities required to perform the new procedure. Local doctors would be trained to conduct the surgery.

China Daily reported that research on the new surgical procedure had begun four years ago in Beijing, China’s capital, led by the Science and Technology Institute of the National Population and Family Planning Commission and Guangzhou’s Family Planning Science and Technology Institute.

The technique was developed through conducting over 1,600 clinical trials all over the country. Already, about 500 men in Qingyuan, a city in Guangdong Province, have undergone the surgery.

All the trials were successful and none of the subjects has experienced any side effects, Zhu Jiaming claimed. The operation costs only few thousand yuan, which is affordable for most people in China, he said.