Treatment and prevention of hair loss caused by Chemotherapy

Treatment and prevention of hair loss caused by chemotherapy

Chemotherapy-induced hair loss is considered to be one of the most important items in cancer care. Falling hair may have a negative impact on the individual's perception of appearance, body image and self-esteem, and deprive the patient of the privacy, because the results of this treatment can easily expose the public to the fact that they have cancer. Forty-seven percent of female cancer patients believe that hair loss is the most harmful side effect of chemotherapy, and 8% may even reduce the willingness to treat because of concerns about this impending side effect.
The total incidence of hair loss caused by chemotherapy is estimated to be 65%. The prevalence and severity of this type of hair loss is variable and related to the selected chemical agent and treatment regimen. There are several types of anticancer drugs that can induce alopecia, and the frequency of chemotherapy-induced hair loss varies among the four major drug classes: the incidence of tubule polymerization inhibitors, such as paclitaxel, is greater than 80%, topoisomerase inhibitors, such as doxorubicin, have a 60%-100% chance of alkylating agents, such as cyclophosphamide greater than 60% Antimetabolites, such as 5-fluorouracil plus leucovorin, have a 10%-50% chance of falling. Treatment with a combination of two or more drugs typically produces a more severe rate of hair attack than monotherapy.
hair loss after chemotherapy  is the result of direct toxic damage to the rapidly dividing cells of the hair follicle by chemotherapy drugs. Although the fallout of anticancer therapy has traditionally been classified as a dystrophic growth phase, recent studies have shown that chemotherapy-induced alopecia may have different pathological mechanisms and clinical patterns. There is currently a lot of evidence that hair follicles may produce two different hair loss responses to the same injury, namely, the fall of the dystrophic growth phase and the fall of the cessation period. Therefore, the hair can be a bunch of rapid flaking or a slow gradual fall. When the mitotic activity of the cell stops, many interacting factors may affect the shedding pattern. And which of the periods when the hair follicles are mitotic when exposed to chemotherapeutic drugs is a very important factor.

Typically, chemotherapy-induced hair loss is reversible, with hair regeneration usually occurring after a delay of 3 to 6 months. In some patients, the newly grown hair may even show changes in color and hair. Hair may be more curly than before and may turn grey because melanocytes are also damaged during treatment, and the recovery of hair color may have to wait until melanocytes recover, but these differences are usually temporary. However, there have been cases in which patients were reported to have undergone bone marrow transplantation with cyclophosphamide and Busulfan, resulting in permanent hair loss. In addition, chemotherapy leading to permanent hair loss is also associated with certain risk factors, including chronic graft-versus-host reaction, previous exposure to X-rays and patient age.

Treatment and prevention of hair loss caused by chemotherapy

Since chemotherapy-induced hair loss can lead to physical and psychological trauma to the patient, many attempts have been made to suppress or slow down the hair loss caused by chemotherapy. Of all the treatments studied so far, scalp cooling (low body temperature) is the most widely used and studied, although the data quality of most of the disclosed methods is not very good. Of the studies published between 1973 and 2003, 53 were for scalp cooling to prevent or slow down chemotherapy-induced hair loss, and 7 of these were randomized controlled trials. Of the 7 randomized studies, scalp cooling was found to have a significant advantage in slowing down the hair loss caused by chemotherapy. This effective result is most pronounced especially when using anthracycline or taxanes as a chemotherapeutic agent. However,  Hair Transplant In Lahore studies have raised concerns about whether it is possible to increase the risk of cancer metastasis in the scalp after cooling treatment. Currently, scalp cooling is a contraindication for patients with malignant tumors in the blood, and the use of cooling therapy for patients with non-hematologic malignancies if their chemotherapy is used to cure cancer is controversial. In general, patients who experience scalp hypothermia often feel too cold and uncomfortable, and may even feel headache.