Why scalp cooling in breast cancer?

Breast cancer is by far the most common female cancer and the proportion of breast cancer patients who receive chemotherapy is rising rapidly. Presently commonly administered drugs have a high potential for inducing severe chemotherapy-induced alopecia (CIA).

Impact of CIA

CIA stigmatizes people as cancer patients and is a constant reminder of the disease. CIA is one of the most common and most feared side effects of cancer treatment for a majority of patients. This has been repeatedly reported [1–14]. The impact of CIA for patients and their near relatives is often greatly underestimated by medical professionals who often consider CIA only as a temporary cosmetic problem. There is a large discrepancy reported between the assessment by medical professionals of the impact of CIA for their patients and the experience of the vast majority of patients [15]. This is also evident from the little research to prevent CIA and the fact that, in many countries, the known methods of CIA prevention are hardly used.

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