Experimental Gel Stops Chemo Hair Loss

W A S H I N G T O N, Jan. 4, 2001 -- A gel that temporarily stopshair from growing prevented the baldness caused by chemotherapytreatment for cancer, at least in rats and mice, researcherssaid today.

If it is shown to be safe in humans, it might be a way toprevent the distressing hair loss and baldness that oftenplagues cancer patients, said the researchers at Glaxo-WellcomeResearch and Development in Research Triangle Park, N.C.

Stephen Davis and colleagues tested the gel on newborn ratsand on mice that had been given transplants of human scalp.They put the gel on and gave the animals chemotherapy.

Hair Survived Chemo With Gel

Both fur and the human hair survived the cancer drugs, theyreport in Friday’s issue of the journal Science.

Davis said despite the development of new, gentler cancerdrugs, many people would love to have a drug to prevent hairloss while being treated.

“There is still a significant unmet medical need,” Davissaid in a telephone interview. “There are still several agentsfor advanced metastatic [spreading] cancer in the breast, lungand colon that have severe side effects, including hair loss.”

Perhaps ironically, the compound works by stopping hairgrowth.

Many cancer drugs work to kill rapidly dividing cells.Tumor cells grow fast, so the approach works fairly well.

But some healthy cells also grow fast, such as hairfollicle cells and the cells that line the gut. This is whychemotherapy has side effects such as nausea and making hairfall out.

Drug Slows Down Hair Growth Davis and colleagues wanted to see if they couldtemporarily stop such cells from their rapid growth and makethem effectively invisible to the cancer drugs.

They targeted cyclin-dependent kinase 2, or CDK2, which isa key switch for turning on cell division.

“The compound actually has two mechanisms — one is aneffect on arresting cell division. The second is actuallyblocking the process of cell death in cells exposed tochemotherapy,” Davis said.

He said his team was also seeing if a different formulationof the gel might work to stop the internal side effects on bonemarrow and the intestines, although this would be harder to dobecause a way would have to be found to stop the chemical fromaffecting other cells and from protecting the cancer cells.

But when used on the scalp, very little seems to leak intothe body, he said.

And the team thinks their compound may work against canceritself, stopping the out-of-control cell growth that makes atumor.

“It’s a long process,” Davis said. “We are still nowherenear in terms of showing these compounds would be safe to testin humans.”