On average, women stayed on treatment with the cooling cap for about 40% of the duration of their chemotherapy.
Overall, 53 of 75 women stopped scalp cooling early, with most citing alopecia as the primary reason; only 30% completed treatment."The efficacy and tolerability of [scalp cooling] applied in a clinical routine setting…appeared to be limited," the authors concluded."The further determination and up-front definition of criteria prognostic for effectiveness of [scalp cooling] may be helpful to identify patient subgroups that may experience a treatment benefit.
Brunner disclosed a grant from Paxman UK, maker of the cooling cap used in the study. Another investigator disclosed personal fees from AstraZeneca, Daiichi Sankyo, Gilead, Lilly, Novartis, and Sirius. M. Alexander Otto is a physician assistant with a master's degree in medical science and a journalism degree from Newhouse. He is an award-winning medical journalist who worked for several major news outlets before joining Medscape. Alex is also an MIT Knight Science Journalism fellow. Email: aotto@mdedge.com.