[ad_1]
CANCER patients who have lost their hair may be a thing of the past – thanks to a new breakthrough.
The results will offer hope to millions of people who are suffering, without doubt, from one of the most painful side effects of treatment.
Manchester scientists have discovered how to protect the hair follicle during chemotherapy.
They hope this will help prevent hair loss during treatment in the future.
Prevent damage
Professor Ralf Paus of the University of Manchester said his team had discovered how chemotherapy called taxanes was damaging the hair.
Medications are generally used to treat breast cancer and lung cancer, which is why patients with these forms of the disease are more likely to lose their hair.
The team now thinks that a new type of anti-cancer drug might provide the solution: reduce the toxic effects of chemotherapeutic drugs.
Dr. Talveen Purba, lead author of the study, said the treatments, known as CDK4 / 6 inhibitors, do not damage hair follicles in the same way.
"We have discovered that CDK4 / 6 inhibitors can be used temporarily to interrupt cell division without causing additional toxic effects in the hair follicle."
"When we immersed CDK4 / 6 inhibitors in the hair follicles of the scalp of a human scalp grown in organs, they were much less sensitive to the harmful effects of taxanes."
… without stopping the chemo-dynamiting cancer
Dr. Purba explained that taxanes affect the hair at the heart of their findings.
Their experiments have shown that the special cells at the base of the hair follicle, which divide to produce the hair themselves, are the most vulnerable to taxanes.
"Therefore, we must protect these cells as much as possible against the adverse effects of chemotherapy," he said.
But, he added, it is essential not to prevent taxanes from exploding a patient's cancer.
The team hopes their work will help pave the way for creams or other scalp medications that briefly suspend cell division in the hair follicles of the scalp of chemo patients.
They said that it could work in parallel with current approaches, such as scalp cooling plugs.
Dr. Purba said that much more research is desperately needed to make it a reality for cancer patients, who have waited so long to see real advances in the prevention of hair loss.
"Despite the fact that taxanes have been used in the clinic for decades and have long been known to cause hair loss, we are only scratching the surface of how they damage the human hair follicle," he said. -he declares.
"We also do not really know why some patients have greater hair loss than others, even if they receive the same drug and the same dose of medication, and why some chemotherapy treatments and combinations drugs have far worse results than others "
"We need time to develop more approaches like this to not only prevent hair loss, but also to promote the regeneration of the hair follicle in patients who have already lost their hair because of the chemotherapy."
[ad_2]
Source link