Scientists amazed by life-changing chemotherapy breakthrough

'If you have a heart attack, you won't look different, but if you have cancer and lose your hair, everyone knows what you are going through.'

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the first treatment of its kind to help patients undergoing chemotherapy.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - The treatment comes in the form of a "cooling cap," which helps cancer patients preserve their hair during chemotherapy treatments.

Though the FDA approved the first systems over a year ago, new clinical trials reveal the caps are doing more than just preserving hair.

Hair-loss affects all cancer patients and surveys reveal over 75 percent of female patients fear this side effect above all others.

Dr. Julie Rani Nangia, the assistant professor of medicine at the Lester and Sue Smith Breast Cancer Center explained: "Chemotherapy fights cancer by attacking rapidly dividing tumour cells. However, hair cells also divide rapidly so the drugs target them as well, which is what causes alopecia.

"Hair is important, especially to women. Hair loss can really affect how a patient feels. If you have a heart attack, you won't look different, but if you have cancer and lose your hair, everyone knows what you are going through. Some people embrace it, but for others, having something so private made public is embarrassing.

"Fear of hair loss has been known to make women avoid chemotherapy or try unproven alternative treatments, so it is good that we now have something proven to offer them."

Trials of the Orbis Paxman Hair Loss Prevention System remain under FDA review but so far appear to give women more confidence due to successful hair preservation.

The cooling caps chill the scalp to about 66 degrees Fahrenheit. This cooled temperature constricts the blood vessels, thus reducing blood flow 20 to 40 percent.

While receiving chemo, the drug moves through the bloodstream so less blood flow to the scalp means less of the drug can affect hair follicles.

In a recent trial with 95 participants, 48 women with stage 1 and 2 breast cancer wore the caps for thirty minutes prior to receiving therapy. They kept the caps on through the treatment and continued to wear them for another hour-and-a-half afterward.

Each of the 95 participants went through four of their prescribed rounds of chemotherapy with 48 wearing the cooling caps and 47 not.

Every participant wearing a cap was found to have a significant amount of hair retention while the remaining patients, who did not use the cooling caps, revealed entirely bald heads after four rounds of treatment.

Those who were rated to have "hair preservation" are those who appear to have an average thickness to their hair from a distance without the use of a wig or other hair pieces.

Each participant's hair was judged by independent evaluators who were unaware of which people wore the caps and which did not.

The cooling caps offer hope to those concerned with hair loss but is not 100 percent preventative - yet.

BBC Radio 4 presenter Kirsty Lang shared her journey through cancer treatment and admitted the cooling caps hurt. She claimed the pain was well-worth it at the conclusion of her therapy as it revealed amazing results.

"I had surgery to remove the tumour in my left breast, which was about the size of a 10p piece, and radiotherapy," Lang described. "Chemo was recommended because the cancer had started to spread, but my consultant said I was a borderline case.

"During that conversation, I admit that one of my first thoughts was about losing my hair. I'm not vain but I planned to keep working. Losing your hair is like having 'I have cancer' tattooed on your forehead. It's not that I was embarrassed. I just didn't want to be treated like a sick person."

When she discussed her concerns with her doctor, "He pulled out his phone and showed me a picture of a woman with thick brown hair and told me that she'd just finished having chemo, and explained that she'd used the cooling cap.

"Having the treatment involved wearing the cap for an hour before chemo, for the hour during, and for an hour afterwards. It is painful, a bit like brain-freeze when you eat an ice cream - a sort of throbbing cold headache. The pain lasted for 20 minutes and I made sure I was talking to a friend or doing one thing to distract myself.

"Keeping warm helped too, and I took to wrapping myself in one of those portable electric blankets."

Lang underwent seven sessions and noticed her hair began to thin. She believes she lost about fifty percent of her lovely locks and admitted: "I realise that picture of the woman with thick brown hair wasn't the norm - I've been left with a bit of a bald patch on my crown, which has now started to grow back. If I have my hair up, you can't really tell.

"I have a wig for special occasions but I don't wear it day-to-day. For me, the additional few hours and discomfort was absolutely worth it."

Evidence of the success of cooling caps continues to mount and Orbis study authors revealed their experiment will continue to follow patients for five years. They will focus on whether the reduction in chemotherapy drugs to the scalp will allow cancer to reach the head as well as overall patient survivor rates.

Dr. Nangia explained the cooling caps should work for patients with any kind of solid tumor but will not work with patients who suffer leukemia or blood cancers due to the blood vessel constriction.

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