Wake Forest Baptist is now offering a new treatment that helps prevent hair loss during chemotherapy. It's the first medical center in the U.S. to use scalp cooling technology.
The device is called the DigniCap, and it's a tight-fitting silicone cap connected to a cooling system. It's placed on the patient's head during chemotherapy. Cooling the scalp reduces blood flow to the hair follicle. This limits exposure to the drugs, and reduces hair loss. Dr. Susan Melin says right now, it's just for breast cancer patients, but in time it may be more widely used.
“Though hair loss is not life threatening to the patient, it certainly does affect their whole outlook on getting chemotherapy. And I think if we can minimize side effects and improve their quality of life that that's equally important.”
In trials, there was a 70 percent success rate. The majority of participants said that they didn't feel the need to wear a hairpiece. Baptist has their first patient scheduled to use the new technology this week.