Does Cancer Cause Hair Loss? Facts to Know

One of the most challenging and time-consuming diseases to treat is cancer. It can wreak havoc on the body and weaken the immune system, but does cancer cause hair loss?

It’s a common belief that cancer patients eventually experience hair loss. But is cancer itself to blame for hair loss? The answer is no.

A thorough analysis of the cancer and hair loss issue has been assembled. You can learn more if you continue to read!

Does Cancer Cause Hair Loss?

So, is hair loss a cancer sign?

Most of the time, as you might already be aware, the cause of hair loss for cancer patients isn’t the cancer itself, but the treatment.

65 percent of cancer patients receiving chemotherapy report hair loss during their treatment, according to a 2015 review.

The proportion of the population who experience the same, severe side effect is extremely high.

The specific cause of chemotherapy-induced hair loss is telogen effluvium, a type of hair loss.

One of the three phases of your hair’s growth cycle is broken in telogen effluvium, a condition that causes hair loss.

Anagen is the name of the first stage of the hair growth cycle. Ninety percent of your hair should be in this stage at any given time because this is where it grows.

Following that, it goes into the catagen phase of rest before entering the telogen phase of hibernation.

It’s normal for up to 9% of your hair follicles to be in this phase; anything higher is cause for concern.

As you might have guessed, telogen effluvium is defined as a sudden change in the number of follicles on your head that are actively hibernating.

Visually, it appears as though your entire scalp is thinned out, leaving your hair looking sparse.

Telogen effluvium is typically brought on by a stressor, such as chemotherapy, major surgery, trauma, or extreme stress.

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Can I Prevent Hair Loss?

There is no surefire way to keep your hair perfectly intact while receiving treatment. There are several different treatments that have been investigated in preventing hair loss, but none have been 100 percent effective.

One choice is to wear scalp cooling caps. In order to reduce blood flow to your scalp and reduce the likelihood that the chemotherapy will harm your hair, the procedure involves wrapping a snug-fitting cap full of a chilled liquid around your head.

When wearing a scalp cooling cap, you might be able to keep at least some hair, but thinning is still most likely to happen.

You might discuss alternative therapies with your doctor, such as the drug minoxidil (Rogaine), which you can apply to your scalp while receiving chemotherapy.

The drug has been shown to potentially speed up hair growth rather than stop hair loss, but more research is needed to make a firm claim for it.

Final Words: Does Cancer Cause Hair Loss

Hair loss is not a typical disease symptom, but there are several diseases where hair loss can occur. Hair loss can be brought on by syphilis, polycystic ovary syndrome, severe nutritional deficiencies, thyroid conditions, psoriasis, and other conditions.

However, it doesn’t happen frequently in cancers.

This is not to say that it never does. There are indeed some very rare ways that hair loss could be caused by the cancer itself.

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