Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this work is to determine the prevalence of chemotherapy-induced irreversible alopecia (CIIA), which is defined as an alopecia that exists at least 6 months after completion of chemotherapy and factors affecting CIIA in early breast cancer patients.
Methods
We performed a cross-sectional study. We retrospectively identified breast cancer patients who had received AC (Adriamycin, Cyclophosphamide) or AC-T (AC followed by Taxane) as neoadjuvant or adjuvant chemotherapy. We conducted questionnaire survey regarding alopecia and measured hair density using phototrichogram.
Results
From February 2015 to May 2015, among 265 patients who responded properly to the questionnaire, the women who answered they had severe alopecia (alopecia > 50% of scalp) were 19 patients (7.2%). AC-only and AC-T treated patients reported severe alopecia in 2.7% and 10.5%, respectively, which were significantly different (p < 0.001). Mean hair density was 75 hair/cm2 (range 42–112) and 75.2/cm2 (range 48.3–102) on occipital area and vertex area, respectively. Hair loss was the most frequent in parietal area (42.6%). Half of total patients (46%) and 73% of CIIA patients regarded that their hair became thinner after chemotherapy
Conclusions
We found that significant proportion of early breast cancer patients were suffering from severe CIIA, especially when they had been treated with AC followed by taxane regimen.
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Acknowledgement
I appreciate the clinical research nurses for conducting the survey with questionnaires. And I also thank the nurses in breast cancer center who helped to guide the participants of this study. This work was supported by the Industrial Core Technology Development Program (10054699) funded by the Ministry of Trade, Industry & Energy (MOTIE, Korea). This study was financially supported by the “Kiturami” Faculty Research Assistance Program of Yonsei University College of Medicine for 2013(6-2013-0157).
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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.
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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.
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Gun Min Kim and Sanghwa Kim have contributed equally to this work.
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Kim, G.M., Kim, S., Park, H.S. et al. Chemotherapy-induced irreversible alopecia in early breast cancer patients. Breast Cancer Res Treat 163, 527–533 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10549-017-4204-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10549-017-4204-x