同志友善醫療

化療引起的暫時性掉髮，會對病患心理社會層面及生活品質帶來嚴重的影響。有些病患因而選擇不易掉髮但治療效益不大的化療藥物，或因恐懼掉髮拒絕化療。因此，如何克服化療引起的掉髮是一項重大的挑戰。而頭皮冷卻法是最被廣泛使用於預防化療掉髮的措施，其利用低溫減少化療藥物對毛囊細胞的傷害，然而過去研究對低溫程度的界定仍不明確，且頭皮冷卻法成效亦會受化療藥物種類、劑量、施打次數、病人化療史影響，因此，並非所有化療病人皆能獲得功效；故因應掉髮最好的處理方式便是提前計劃，在頭髮重新長出前，可依據個人喜好配戴暫時性的假髮或使用頭巾，同時保護頭皮免受日曬和風吹。

Chemotherapy-induced temporary alopecia may cause psychosocial disturbances and have a negative effect on quality of life. Some patients even choose the drug with less treatment effect or refusal chemotherapy to avoid alopecia. Therefore, overcoming chemotherapy-induced alopecia becomes a major challenge. Current findings indicate that scalp hypothermia is the most commonly used method to prevent alopecia. The scientific rationale for scalp hypothermia is based on lowered scalp temperatures which decrease the amount of drug reaching the hair follicles and thus minimize damage to the scalp hair. However, the degree of scalp temperature reduction was not very clear and definite. And the effectiveness of scalp hypothermia depends upon many factors like type of applied cytostatics, doses, number of chemotherapy courses and patient's chemotherapy history. That's why not all patients who received the scalp hypothermia were acceptable hair preservation. So the best way to deal with chemotherapy-induced alopecia is to plan ahead like appropriate wig or head covering until the hair regrowth and protecting the scalp from sun and cold exposure at the same time.