Hair is an important part of our personal identity, so its loss during cancer treatment can be painful at an already difficult time. However, this can be a positive sign that chemotherapy works, and hair generally grows after treatment, said Desmond TobinA dermatological scientist at the University College Dublin’s Charles Institute.
The hair can be different after chemotherapySaid Tobin. “In the vast majority of cases, after treatment, the hair reproduced well and similar to the way it was before,” he told Live Science. “But in the first stages of recovery, the texture and appearance of the hair can change.”
The most commonly reported difference by patients who finished chemotherapy are the “chemo loops” – the hair that reproduces as curly when it had been right. Usually, this changed the hair comes back to its original shape in about a year, said Tobin. But why does the hair grow back differently after chemotherapy?
To explain the “chemo loops”, we must first understand how hair grows normally. Individual human hairs are long fibers of dead skin cells, mainly composed of keratin proteins, Sunny WongProfessor of dermatology at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Michigan, told Live Science. Each strand is created by a hair follicle – a complex factory of different types of cells – which involves a constant cycle of growth, rest and discharge.
We were born with all the hair follicles that we will never have, said Tobin. But a mixture of factors – including geneticNutrition and fluctuating hormone levels during the different stages of life – means that the appearance of hair is constantly evolving.
Pigments control hair color: production of sex hormones at the start of puberty darkens fair hair and loss of pigments with age Light hair gray or white later in life.
In relation: Can gray hair be reversed?
Meanwhile, the shape of the hair follicles determines the shape – and, therefore, the texture – of each fiber, with circular follicles producing stiff hair, flattened oval follicles creating rolled hair and a follicle somewhere between the two more loose waves.
How chemo changes hair
So, what are chemotherapy medications to these hair follicles? Cancer Treatments target cells quickly divided so that hair follicles, which also contain stem cells to act like fuel for hair growth, are particularly vulnerable to damage.
“The hair follicle is one of the most proliferative and most divided tissues in the body, probably in second position with bone marrow or intestine, it is therefore preferentially attacked,” said Tobin. “This means that the hair follicle enters a hyper-stress response.” Chemotherapy therefore stops the cycle of the hair, forcing these follicles to expel the fibers during the growth stage or move them in the dormant phase.
However, post-processing, stem cells in individual hair follicles are starting to wake up. The cycle is gradually starting again, which allows hair to grow back, but sometimes with a slightly modified appearance.
“The chemotherapeutic exhibition will damage the existing hair follicle and can transform them into an abnormal form so that it produces a fiber of a different shape or length, perhaps thinner,” said Tobin. “It depends on how this hair follicle faces the impact of the drug.”
Likewise, the effect of chemotherapy on other body systems – such as endocrine systemwhich is responsible for the manufacture of hormones – can temporarily modify the production of pigments, leading to a change of hair color.
Although the complexity of the factors determining the appearance of the hair makes it difficult to predict the response of an individual patient, in most cases, the hair returns to normal because the body treats the remains of the drug, Wong said.
“These drugs work by integrating with replication DNASo it takes time to elude the system, “explained Wong.” Probably cells just need to accumulate over time and signals (which regulate the hair cycle) must simply return and reconfigure. “”
The human body is remarkably resilient and the hair follicles damaged by cancer treatments can be completely recovered. Although it can be frustrating to wait for the hair to come back, the experts urge patients to avoid damage damaged such as dyeing or smoothing of their new growth.
“The hair generally grows one centimeter a month on the scalp, but good nutrition and blood supply will power the soil in which these hair follicles develop and improve its recovery,” said Tobin.
