Higher quality of life

Hair loss is one of the most common side effects of chemotherapy, and it affects most of the patients which have healing treatments.

During chemotherapy, chemotherapy drugs affect the whole body. So it targets not only cancer cells, but all the cells in body. However, if the scalp is cooled by DigniCap during chemotherapy, hair loss can be prevented or reduced to a large extent. DigniCap is a new approach to prevent chemotherapy-induced hair loss.
 

How to apply head skin cooling with DigniCap Application?

During intravenous chemotherapy is applied, the head skin is cooled with a sensor-controlled system. The patient wears a silicone cap that circulates inside the coolant.

The effect of hair protection is based on two mechanisms:

1.The cooling process causes the blood vessels of the deep hair to shrink. As a result, the amount of drug reaching the scalp is reduced.

2.The cooling of the head skin can reduce the metabolism of drugs and their effect on hair follicles. Over the past 10 years, head cooling during chemotherapy applied to more than 6.000 patients. This data depends on treatments with anthracyclines, taxanes, cyclophosphamide and platinum combinations. In total, treatment was successful in 81% of the patients in terms of complete or good hair protection or no need for wearing head coverings or wigs due to hair loss.
 

Checklist for patients

 

Before Treatment;

• Patients should not use hair sprey or hair jelly.
• Patients should bring a comb or hair brush on the day of treatment.
   

After Treatment;

• Chemotherapy makes the hair brittle. For this reason, it is advisable to avoid as much as possible rubbing of the hair:
• Do not treat hair too heavily (eg use of hair curlers, hair straighteners, etc.)
• Avoid all the stresses on hair roots (eg hair bun or horse tail)
• Patients should not use a hair dryer for 24 hours after hair-cooling. The hair should only be allowed by air dry.
• Using a low pH shampoo and occasional moisturizing hair mask may prevent drying of hair and hair.
• Perma and paint applications make your hair more fragile and the treatment results may vary according to normal conditions.
• If you want to have perma; applying the method to the ends without touching the hair roots, rather than applying the whole hair, may have less aggressive effect than the normal perma.
• In this way the paint does not come into direct contact with the head skin; it only touches the hair.
• For long and / or curly hair: Please wash your hair very carefully. To prevent your hair from interfering, avoiding kneading or twisting, first use shampoo from roots of your hair to the ends of your hair.
   

Using non-recommended conditions

• Hematologic characteristics (lymphoma, malignant melanoma, leukemia)
• Radiotherapy of the brain skull bones previously,
• Alopecia (hair loss due to genetic etc.) in the patient's past,
• Presence of known hair and brain metastases,
• Consult your physician for the suitability of your chemotherapy regimen.
   

Possible side effects

• Feeling cold during hair-treatment
• Tingling or hair-ache
• Feeling of heaviness in head.
• Dizziness
• Neck pain
• Claustrophobia
   

All of these side effects are temporary.

Note: It may be due to the chemotherapy itself that headache may occur during the ongoing chemotherapy infusion or after hair curative therapy, because these are side effects of certain cytostatic drugs such as cyclophosphamide and epirubicin.

Headache or pressure sensation in the head; This can occur during the precooling phase and usually takes place when the treatment temperature is reached.

If headache persists, it can usually be treated with normal painkillers such as Ibuprofen or Paracetamol.

This situation will be discussed with the oncologists.

 

In case of hair loss

Using the DigniCap application, hair dye cooling is generally well tolerated. Scalp cooling is usually completely unable to prevent chemotherapy-induced hair loss.Especially in the first and second sessions, the patient may experience some hair loss.This does not indicate the failure of direct hair-cooling therapy. When the next cycle of chemotherapy, scalp cooling treatment is continued generally it decreases hair loss and even hair re-growth in some patients live. If you have doubts about the outcome, it is recommended that you have at least two or three treatments before you decide to continue or end hair-curative cooling.Hair hair cooling therapy can be interrupted or stopped at any time if the patient wishes.However, this will lead to hair loss.