for cancer patients, the cooling helmet helps to limit hair loss

“Doctor, am I going to lose my hair?” This sentence, many doctors have heard it in the mouth of their cancer patients. Hair loss, a consequence of the side effects of certain treatments such as chemotherapy, is a frequent concern of patients.

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For a long time, there have been cooling helmets, more and more efficient, to try to avoid this. Jenny Marx, with her long blond hair, is proof of the effectiveness of this device: four years ago, the doctor of this American told her that she had breast cancer and that she was going to have to undergo chemotherapy. “I was very worried, even scared of losing my hair. Of course, my cancer was the first of my worries, but next was losing my hair”she testifies.

Vasoconstrictor effect

Jenny Marx was able to benefit from a cooling helmet during her chemotherapy sessions. She tells : “ First you put on this blue helmet, in which there is a cooling liquid, and then this cap which is very tight. She smiles : I look like an American football player. It’s connected to a machine that constantly sends cold. Oh my god it’s very cold! But we get used to it and it’s worth it!”

The cold (-5°C) has a vasoconstrictor effect, it constricts blood vessels, blocks chemo on the scalp and partially prevents hair loss. “It worked, I only lost 50% of my hair, insists Jenny Marx. It was almost invisible, no need for a wig. I could keep my cancer a secret, I only told people to whom I wanted to talk about it.”

“It gave me a kind of control over a disease that I had no control over.”

In France, many hospitals are already using this type of helmet, marketed by several companies, but which does not work with all chemotherapy. A study, presented at the Chicago Cancer Congress (link in English), has just shown that at an even colder temperature, between -7.5°C and -10°C, this cooling helmet is even more effective against hair loss.