Rose Lucy, Mager Layna, Hordinsky Maria, Dulmage Brittany
The Ohio State University College of Medicine, Columbus, OH, USA.
Department of Dermatology, The University of Minnesota Medical School, Minneapolis, MN, USA.
Support Care Cancer. 2025 Feb 1;33(2):137. doi: 10.1007/s00520-025-09209-y.
We have taken great interest in the topic of red light therapy (RLT) for the treatment of hair loss secondary to cancer therapies. On April 7, 2024, we searched through two private Facebook groups (Fig. 1) intended for patients who used scalp cooling for prevention of chemotherapy-induced hair loss. In these groups, we found several posts inquiring about the use of RLT (Fig. 2). Posts ranged from patients asking if others in the group have used RLT, if RLT is safe to use while scalp cooling, and recommendations for how long to wait to initiate RLT after chemotherapy infusions are completed. Despite the rise in popularity of RLT for the management of hair loss, to date, only two clinical trials have included patients with cancer treatment-induced hair loss, which showed higher hair counts and increased quality of life in those who used RLT [1, 2]. Furthermore, no formal recommendations from oncologists or scalp cooling companies have been made to help guide patients when considering using RLT.
我们对红光疗法（RLT）治疗癌症治疗引起的脱发这一主题非常感兴趣。2024年4月7日，我们在两个面向使用头皮冷却预防化疗引起脱发的患者的私人Facebook群组中进行了搜索（图1）。在这些群组中，我们发现了几篇询问RLT使用情况的帖子（图2）。帖子内容包括患者询问群组中的其他人是否使用过RLT、在进行头皮冷却时使用RLT是否安全，以及关于化疗输液完成后等待多久开始使用RLT的建议。尽管RLT在脱发管理中的应用越来越普遍，但迄今为止，只有两项临床试验纳入了癌症治疗引起脱发的患者，结果显示使用RLT的患者头发数量增加，生活质量提高[1,2]。此外，肿瘤学家或头皮冷却公司尚未给出正式建议，以帮助指导患者在考虑使用RLT时做出决策。
