Doug Flewellen, the first patient in Texas to receive the new method of care, says for him, the procedure was a no-brainer.

"No man wants to go through radical removal, and I knew active monitoring could have potentially aggravated the cancer," Flewellen said. "The side effects of traditional treatment were not worth it to me, and I wasn't afraid to try the most cutting-edge technology. Looking back, the experience was even better than I was expecting, and I hope to see nanoparticle therapy advance into an option for anyone diagnosed with prostate cancer in the future."


The gold nanoparticles were invented by Naomi Halas, the head of Rice University's Laboratory for Nanophotonics. Canfield worked closely with Halas and Nanospectra Biosciences, the company where the shells are licensed, to incorporate the state-of-the-art technology into the trial that is also underway at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and the University of Michigan to test the efficacy of the therapy.


About UTHealth
Established in 1972 by The University of Texas System Board of Regents, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) is Houston's Health University and Texas' resource for health care education, innovation, scientific discovery and excellence in patient care. The most comprehensive academic health center in the UT System and the U.S. Gulf Coast region, UTHealth is home to Jane and Robert Cizik School of Nursing, John P. and Kathrine G. McGovern Medical School, and schools of biomedical informatics, biomedical sciences, dentistry and public health. UTHealth includes The University of Texas Harris County Psychiatric Center, as well as the growing clinical practices UT Physicians, UT Dentists and UT Health Services. The university's primary teaching hospitals are Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center, Children's Memorial Hermann Hospital and Harris Health Lyndon B. Johnson Hospital.

Back to HCB News

U.S. Healthcare Homepage