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SD public defense duties shift from counties to state; SCOTUS appears skeptical of restricting government communications with social media companies; Trump lawyers say he can't make bond; new scholarships aim to connect class of 2024 to high-demand jobs.

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The SCOTUS weighs government influence on social media, and who groups like the NRA can do business with. Biden signs an executive order to advance women's health research and the White House tells Israel it's responsible for the Gaza humanitarian crisis.

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Midwest regenerative farmers are rethinking chicken production, Medicare Advantage is squeezing the finances of rural hospitals and California's extreme swing from floods to drought has some thinking it's time to turn rural farm parcels into floodplains.

UW Researcher’s Study May Prevent Hair Loss During Chemo

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Monday, July 28, 2014   

MADISON, Wis. – A new University of Wisconsin-Madison study offers great hope for saving the hair follicles of patients undergoing chemotherapy.

A new kind of vasoconstrictor – a drug that narrows blood vessels – could be the key.

Hair loss, or alopecia, is one of the most dreaded side effects of chemotherapy, according to William Fahl, a cancer researcher at the McArdle Laboratory for Cancer Research, part of the UW School of Medicine and Public Health.

"Alopecia was ranked number two,” he says. “The only one worse than that was, essentially, having to explain to your partner that you could possibly die from this.

“A second report showed that up to 8 percent of women were willing to forgo chemotherapy, simply to avoid losing their hair."

Fahl explains chemotherapy drugs attack rapidly dividing cancer cells, but they also attack healthy hair follicle cells, which are some of the fastest-dividing cells in the body.

He says a simple, topical application of the new vasoconstrictor researchers are working on can save hair follicles.

And what led to the discovery?

"It was equal parts hard work and screening and looking for an answer, and equal parts serendipity and just chance, which isn't uncommon in discovery," Fahl explains.

Fahl says in the UW cancer clinic, the single largest poster on the first floor shows women what they're going to look like after chemotherapy so they can emotionally prepare themselves.

So, in his words, preventing hair loss is a big deal.

According to Fahl, the study has many implications.

"We want to focus our energies on improving the quality of life by preventing these side effects,” he stresses, “and also decreasing the cost of cancer care, likewise, by reducing these side effects."

He says the next step toward bringing the new product to market is more clinical trials, which is a matter of finding the money to fund the trials.





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