Cooling caps help breast cancer patients preserve hair

With scalp cooling, breast cancer patients, women in particular, may no longer suffer from heavy hair loss when undergoing chemotherapy for cancer, a recent clinical trial showed.

Around 50.5 percent of the 95 breast cancer patients who used the cooling caps and completed four cycles of chemotherapy, were able to keep at least half of their hair, versus none of the 47 patients who did not use it, according to early results of a clinical trial released Friday at the 38th San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium in Texas, the United States.

The patients were regarded as having hair preservation if their hair looked normal from a distance and they need no wigs or other hair pieces to hide their hair loss.

The trial, halted midway to present striking early results to the public, would enroll 182 women with early stage breast cancer who planned to have at least four cycles of chemotherapy. It tested the Paxman Scalp Cooling System, a cooling cap technology for hair loss prevention during chemotherapy treatments.

Once approved, the Paxman system would become a rival of DigniCap, the first cooling cap system approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in December 2015.

Chemotherapy, targeting rapidly dividing cells, is a common treatment for cancer. Unfortunately, hair cells, which also divide quickly, are often killed during chemotherapy treatments, resulting in heavy hair loss.

The cooling cap system, by lowering scalp temperature, constricts blood vessels and reduce blood flow to the scalp, thus reducing the injury on hair by limiting chemotherapy drugs reaching vulnerable follicles on the head.

source: Xinhua