For cancer patients on chemotherapy, hair loss is often a dreaded result of the treatment. But there's a new tool at Tallahassee Memorial's Cancer Center to reduce hair loss for many of those patients.
TMH Medical Oncologist Dr. Karen Russell said the Dignicap technology is actually pretty simple.
"The tool sends coolant to the scalp. It's kind of a cap-and-flap system that almost looks like a combination of the old aviator's cap that goes over the ears and a swimmer's cap."
That coolant, she explains, shrinks the blood vessels to the hair follicles, which reduces the amount of chemo reaching and destroying the follicles.
"The patient wears it each time they receive their treatment and so the goal of that is not no hair loss, but it's to keep more than 50 percent of your hair."
Which she said typically appears like no hair loss at all. Still, she cautioned it's not for every patient and their doctor has the final say on whether or not it's a solution in any given case.
