Hair loss
Effects of chemotherapy
Chemotherapy is the main cause of hair loss in teenagers with cancer. Chemo affects rapidly dividing cells like the cells in your mouth, your gut, your bone marrow and the roots of your hair.
Not all chemo drugs cause hair loss and the amount of hair that falls out varies for different people. However, many people will lose most or all of the hair on their head, and this usually starts around two weeks after the first lot of chemo. Some chemo drugs also cause the loss of other body hair, such as eyebrows.
Hair loss from chemo is temporary. Normally your hair will grow back once the treatment is finished.
Effects of radiotherapy
With radiotherapy, only the hair in the area of the body that’s being treated falls out. So if you’re having radiotherapy to your brain you’ll lose your hair in the areas where the radiotherapy waves pass through. After radiotherapy, your hair is likely to grow back but it will probably be thinner than before, and it is possible that it won’t grow back in that area.
More information on hair loss is available on the Click4Tic website.
