Q: Can a woman contract cancer as...

Q: Can a woman contract cancer as a result of having intercourse with a man who has prostate cancer?

A: “Prostate cancer is not an infectious disease in any way, shape or form,” said Dr. Kevin R. Loughlin, a urologist at Harvard Medical School. “Having intercourse with a partner who has it does not confer any risk whatsoever.” It is unlikely that any cancer cells will be present in the man’s ejaculate, Loughlin said, and even if there were, they would be recognized as foreign by the woman’s immune system and killed off.