Hair loss Treatment Center

PARTICIPANTS Carole Chamberlain Breast Cancer Survivor Dawn Colucci Breast Cancer Survivor Generosa Grana, MD Director, Breast Cancer Program, Cooper Hospital EDITORIAL CONSULTANT Maura N. Dickler, MD Assistant Attending Physician, Memorial Sloan-Kettering

ANNOUNCER: Four years ago Dawn Colucci discovered she had breast cancer. And as dawn's doctor explained, she would need extensive treatment. And while treatments have become more effective, they can also produce a host of side effects.

GENEROSA GRANA, MD: Our treatments have not gotten easier. On the other hand, the drugs that we use to counteract the side effects of therapy have gotten much better. So again, we are much better able to deal with the side effects.

ANNOUNCER: One treatment that many women undergo is surgery.

GENEROSA GRANA, MD: One of the most important consequences of breast surgery is the emotional impact of that loss of body part. And again, over the last 20 years, we've seen more and more breast sparing procedures, breast conservation with the use of lumpectomy and radiation, thus limiting the amount of surgery, the amount of reconstruction.

ANNOUNCER: Sometimes pain and discomfort can occur after the surgery.

GENEROSA GRANA, MD: That depends on the type of surgery that is done, the woman's pain threshold and other factors: the type of reconstruction that is used if a woman has reconstruction, whether drains are left in place or not.

ANNOUNCER: For some women radiation therapy follows surgery.

CAROLE CHAMBERLAIN: I think the first thing I asked him and as a woman, I think most women will understand is, "Am I going to lose my hair?" He said, "No, you're going to get sunburned."

GENEROSA GRANA, MD: Radiation therapy really lacks life-threatening side effects, yet women can experience side effects that can be uncomfortable. You can get redness, blistering of the breast and area being radiated, which can be quite uncomfortable. It's usually treated with topical agents to help symptoms.

ANNOUNCER: For Dawn, radiation was difficult. But she found ways to work through the problems.

DAWN COLUCCI: Radiation therapy can also leave you very tired and disoriented as well. I think that was kind of difficult. By trying to keep myself fit, that helped me get through the radiation.

ANNOUNCER: Chemotherapy is another powerful treatment, but can have side effects that alter quality of life during treatment.

DAWN COLUCCI: I'd constantly have this taste of metal in my mouth, which was very difficult to rid of. And the only thing that would soothe that was having cold ice cream. So I got on a kick of having ice cream.

And medications that were given to me to take for nausea and fatigue to get me through the treatments.

GENEROSA GRANA, MD: Another important factor is the hair loss. It is important to acknowledge that this will happen. It is important to acknowledge that it's not life-threatening, but it's very emotionally devastating for a woman to lose her hair.

DAWN COLUCCI: After the seventeenth day, having received my chemo, my hair started falling out. Which was frightening and something that I don't think any woman would want to have to go through. So as it started falling out on my pillowcase, I decided just to shave it off.

And I refused to wear a wig, even though I had purchased one. I did scarves. I did caps. I did different color scarves and different kinds of caps from all over. It was fun, actually. That part was fun, but you were always made aware of the fact that you had no hair on your head. But you can live with it.

ANNOUNCER: Another form of therapy to treat breast cancer involves the use of hormonal therapy.

When a tumor grows in response to hormones such as estrogen, hormonal therapies can reduce the levels, or block the effects, of these hormones, thus starving the tumor. The choice of hormonal therapy depends on how advanced the disease is and whether the woman is pre-menopausal or post-menopausal and on how advanced the disease is.

For the post-menopausal woman with an early stage breast cancer, a 5-year course of tamoxifen is the standard treatment. Another option is Arimidex, which studies suggest may be equally or more effective with fewer side effects.

For patients with locally advanced and advanced breast cancers, other drugs have been approved for hormonal therapy.

Fortunately, compared to chemotherapy, women on hormonal treatment will experience relatively few side effects, the most common being hot flashes, which can be treated with medication.

ANNOUNCER: Each woman will react differently to breast cancer treatment but survivors point out: it helps to know what's ahead and understand there are ways to cope.

CAROLE CHAMBERLAIN: They have to ask these doctors everything. Am I going to be sick to my stomach? How long is going to last? How many treatments am I going to have? What's the outcome afterwards? And of course, they can't always answer that question. But you have to ask your questions? You have to put your fright away.

DAWN COLUCCI: What I did was I made the best of everything on a day-to-day basis. If I wasn't feeling well, I would just take it easy or I would surround myself with loved ones, with family, with friends.

The treatments, although they are very harsh, they do work, and I'm an example of that. And I'm very pleased with what I've had done. And let me say, that should it happen again, I wouldn't do anything different.