While it has long been advised that men using low-T therapy topical creams or gels avoid skin-to-skin contact with women or children for the first few hours after application to reduce the risk of secondary exposure, a recent study raises the possibility that men with prostate cancer should avoid contact with women using the same testosterone products.

Researchers from Penn State University’s Hershey Cancer Institute allegedly found that a prostate cancer patient, who continued to show high testosterone levels even though he was not taking testosterone drugs, had been coming in contact with testosterone via sexual intercourse with his wife, who used topical testosterone cream as a vaginal lubricant before intercourse.

According to the testosterone research study, the male patient did not know his wife was using the testosterone product. In their testosterone case report published Jan. 5, in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, researchers state:

“We theorized that he was having contact with the androgen cream during coitus, leading to high testosterone levels. We asked his wife to stop applying her topical cream, and his testosterone level normalized by August 2014. Unfortunately his PSA (prostate-specific antigen) continued to rise despite the reduced testosterone levels, and ultimately he began androgen-deprivation therapy.”

Although topical testosterone gels absorb slowly into the skin and body’s system, the Penn State researchers believe that testosterone reservoir is formed in the skin, which can then be transmitted during sexual intercourse.

Testosterone replacement therapy is often sought by men who report a low libido during the onset of middle age, a trend which has been a concern of medical experts in regards to the safety of women who having sexual relations with men using low-T treatment creams, gels, or other testosterone product topical variants. With the increase in women using testosterone replacement products, the risk may now be a concern for men.

Dangers of Testosterone Product Use

While it is not clear whether that patient’s elevated PSA levels were caused by the topical contact with his wife’s low-T cream, this research case does underscores the medical community’s suspicions about the possible testosterone side effects associated with secondary contact with topical testosterone products.

Commonly marketed and referred to as low-T products, testosterone replacement therapy drugs target men as young as their 30s who are supposedly suffering fatigue and diminished sex drive, natural occurrences in males as they approach middle age. However, these testosterone product manufacturers exploit these concerns of aging and decreased masculinity in order to allegedly promote their testosterone injections, creams, gels, and patches without fully warning consumers of the possible testosterone side effects.

In January 2014, the FDA issued a drug safety announcement that the agency was investigating the increased risk of stroke, heart attack, stroke and death in men who used FDA-approved testosterone products.

U.S. doctors write 5.3 million prescriptions annually for low-t treatments. In addition to injections, testosterone replacement drugs come in gels, creams, patches and pills such as Androgel, Testim, and Axiron.

More than 200 testosterone drug lawsuits have been consolidated into a multidistrict litigation, or testosterone MDL. Plaintiffs allege that low-T drugs have caused them to suffer heart attacks, strokes, deep vein thrombosis (blood clots deep in the body), pulmonary embolism (when pulmonary arteries in the lungs become blocked), or other severe testosterone side effects that were allegedly not disclosed on product labels and warnings.