With over 20 years of clinical evidence, it is well established that offering scalp cooling in conjunction with chemotherapy treatment supports hair retention in patients. While there are no guarantees of success, we are proud to have helped hundreds of thousands of patients maintain a degree of control and their sense of normality through cold capping and believe that scalp cooling should be the standard of cancer care.
One of the primary factors that determines the efficacy of scalp cooling is the chemotherapy drug regimen that a patient is following. Data from the Scalp Cooling Registry showed that 56% of patients did not require a head covering as a result of their hair retention and 53% of patients retained at least 50% of their hair, according to the WHO Alopecia Scale. This study covered 7,424 patients in a real-world setting across 24 drug regimens, making it one of the most in-depth and significant data sets ever in scalp cooling efficacy.
Moreover, it found that 78% of patients receiving taxane-based regimens did not need to use a head covering during the course of their treatment, in comparison to 40% using anthracyclines, and 45% using a combination of anthracyclines and taxanes.
Heather’s Hair Retention, post-chemo
Stepping away from the clinical data for a minute, it is important to realise that scalp cooling has a very human impact on patients. Heather Wolff, a breast cancer patient from Ohio, believed that the ability to retain her hair through scalp cooling enabled her to go about her life in a relatively normal fashion. Having a job in sales and two teenage daughters, Heather commented that “being bald and looking sick were not options”.
Heather’s Post-Chemotherapy Hair Regrowth
As two stereotypes often associated with cancer, Heather was able to avoid this, having been offered scalp cooling: “I was never bald and that felt good”.
Whilst wigs can be an alternative option and allow patients more choice over how they present themselves, this option doesn’t save patients from the trauma of losing their hair, watching it fall out, or having to shave it off.
Ohio breast cancer patient Kathy Duffin did not feel the need to wear a wig or head covering at all during the course of her treatment. She says that the ability to keep her hair enabled her to continue in her job of working with US Paralympians, without having to explain her cancer diagnosis to the athletes.
Data can tell us about scalp cooling efficacy rates and has even helped us to produce a Scalp Cooling Outcomes Calculator. However, it is the stories of everyday people – the mothers who protect their families, the people who need that degree of control when everything else is decided for them, those who don’t want the world to know their diagnosis, and more – that motivate us to ensure everyone has the choice to scalp cool.
