Wearing Super-Cold Hat During Chemo May Prevent Hair Loss
Cold Cap Hospital staff help a patient put on a cold cap. Dignitana A team of U.S. researchers are investigating the possibilities. What's the first thing you'd want to know if you learned you had to undergo chemotherapy? Oncologist Susan Melin of the Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in North Carolina told the Associated Press that often, her patients ask first about hair loss. "It's not, 'Is this going to cure me?' It's, 'Am I going to lose my hair?'" she said. U.S. researchers are now conducting trials on one brand of cold cap, called DigniCap, meant to reduce that hair loss. The caps are connected to machines that chill them to around 41 degrees Fahrenheit. The idea is that by slowing blood flow to the scalp, they reduce the amount of chemotherapy drug that reaches the scalp and destroys hairs. While the caps are commonly used in Europe and Canada, they haven't been...