NEW BERLIN, Wis. — A new technology is offering new hope to some cancer patients. It’s called cool capping, cold cap therapy or scalp cooling. It allows more people to keep a key part of their identity during treatment.
Earlier this year, Desiree Barton of New Berlin was diagnosed with breast cancer. She said it was a day she will never forget.
“I mean, I kind of feel like I got knocked down,” she said. “I was devastated. I was scared.”
It can be a scary diagnosis, and chemotherapy is an intimidating course of treatment that often causes people to lose all their hair.
“Your hair doesn’t define you as a person, but you certainly identify with your hair,” Barton said. “I just had this fear of losing my hair.”
Barton started researching ways to try and keep her hair during chemo. She learned about a relatively new option known as scalp cooling.
It involves putting on a cold, tight-fitting silicone cap and an outer cover on the head, before, during, and after each chemo treatment. Experts say it reduces the amount of chemo medicine that reaches the hair follicles.
Rachel Kayla with Paxman Coolers — one of the few manufacturers of the cooling system — said the treatment has become more widely used since first being approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2017.
“Initially, it was only approved for breast cancer patients, but the FDA expanded it for all solid tumor cancers,” Kayla said. “We are now seeing a wider variety of patients using it.”
Barton said she was happy with the results. She was able to finish chemotherapy with 95% of her hair.
“At this point, I still feel like I can continue with my life feeling somewhat normal, during a time in my life when it’s really not normal,” she said.
“Normal” means everything to Barton right now. Her battle with cancer is not over. Her next step is radiation.
But she’s able to go into it feeling a little stronger and more confident, with a full head of hair.