Rubin H. Flocks and Colloidal Gold Treatments for Prostate Cancer

Abstract

In the early 1950s, Rubin H. Flocks of the University of Iowa began to treat prostate cancer patients with colloidal gold (Au198) therapy, evolving his technique over nearly 25 years in 1515 patients. We reviewed the long-term outcomes of Flocks' prostate cancer patients as compared to those patients treated by other methods at the University of Iowa before Flocks' chairmanship. We reviewed archived patient records, Flocks' published data, and long-term survival data from the Iowa Tumor Registry to determine short- and long-term outcomes of Flocks' work with colloidal gold. We also reviewed the literature of Flocks’ time to compare his outcomes against those of his contemporaries. The use of colloidal gold, either as primary or adjunctive therapy, provided short- and long-term survival benefit for the majority of Flocks' patients as compared to historical treatment options (p < 0.001). Flocks' use of colloidal gold for the treatment of locally advanced prostate cancer offered short- and long-term survival benefits compared to other contemporary treatments.

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“…Radioactive colloidal gold ( 198 Au) therapy was introduced by Rubin Flocks over 60 years ago to treat prostate cancer. His technique evolved over nearly 25 years with the treatment of 1515 patients, and short-and long-term outcomes suggest that the use of colloidal gold resulted in statistically significant improvements in survival compared with other contemporary treatments [3]. These results support Flocks' theory that colloidal gold provides localized radiation with less risk to adjacent structures and transportation to draining lymph nodes for the treatment of metastasized tumor cells.…”

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