Alopecia prevention during chemotherapy: from the benchmark to real clinical practice. A prospective study

Background. Alopecia is one of the main side effects of anticancer chemotherapy and has a significant impact on patients’ appearance, quality of life, social adaptation and mental health of cancer patients. Estimated number of new cancer diagnosis increases annually alongside with the proportion of patients receiving chemotherapy. That means an annual increase in the global burden of chemo-induced alopecia and associated negative consequences. The development of various methods for the prevention of alopecia in cancer patients has continued for decades. However, convincing data have been obtained only for the scalp hypothermia method. In this point, the Paxman company’s cooling systems (UK) – the Orbis and Orbis II devices – have been most widely studied. Despite the fact that Orbis devices were approved in Russia more than 10 years ago, since then just a small amount of real clinical practice has been accumulated and questions regarding the effectiveness of scalp hypothermia in patients with variable cancers still remain open. Aim. Analysis of local clinical practice with scalp hypothermia via the Orbis II device for the prevention of alopecia in patients receiving various chemotherapy regimens. Materials and methods. An open, prospective, single-center study included patients with various cancer types who were indicated for chemotherapy. Orbis II device was used for prophylactic hypothermia. The severity of alopecia was assessed according to the CTCAE version 5.0 at baseline and during anticancer therapy. Results. From June 2022 to May 2023, scalp cooling procedures were performed in 51 patients, of them 78% of all procedures were performed in female cancers: breast tumors – 109 (52.2%) procedures, ovarian cancer– 33 (15.8%), and cervix cancer – 22 (10.5%). The effectiveness of scalp hypothermia in preventing of severe alopecia was 73%. Conclusion. Scalp cooling can be considered as an effective method for the prevention of chemotherapy induced alopecia. Further studies are needed to assess larger patient populations to identify favorable and negative factors that affect potency of the hypothermia.