Objectives: Vasectomy is a low morbidity and high efficacy surgical method. A small percentage of cases may have paternity after surgery as a complication.
Methods: We reviewed all patients who underwent vasectomy at our department from 1995 to 1999 (n = 1492), defining technical failure as pregnancy or no disappearance of spermatozoids in the follow-up sperm analysis.
Results: We found 2 cases; one of them did not have a negative sperm test after three months, the other one's wife became pregnant after previous azoospermia. Both patients showed granulomas in the pathologic report after a second operation.
Conclusions: Vasectomy is a surgical technique that may have a failure rate close to 2%. Paternity after the operation may appear even after several years. Several authors report the existence of granulomas in those cases in which spontaneous recanalization appears. In our series it was a constant.