WASHINGTON – Hair loss is one of the most despised side effects of chemotherapy, and now breast cancer patients are getting a new way to try to save their locks.
The Food and Drug Administration said Tuesday it would allow marketing of the DigniCap, a cooling system that chills patients' scalps to reduce the hair loss that is so common during breast cancer treatment.
A doctor who led research with the hair-preserving strategy welcomed the FDA's move, saying hair loss has a traumatic effect on patients, and survivors, by revealing an illness that many would prefer to keep private.
"It's such a marker for women — for work, for their families, for their children — that something's wrong with them," said Dr. Hope Rugo of the University of California, San Francisco. "You get just a few months of chemotherapy, and it takes more than a year for your hair to recover."