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When density has not come back, the options are to hide the gap or to move hair into it. Keratin fibres and scalp micropigmentation are cheap, immediate and reversible; hair transplantation and surgical reconstruction have been reported in cancer survivors only in small numbers, and no trial compares any of them.
This record covers what is left after minoxidil: concealment and surgery. Keratin or cotton hair-building fibres cling to existing hairs electrostatically and make a thin area read as dense in ordinary light; they wash out, cost little and carry no medical risk beyond the obvious one of a wet day. Scalp micropigmentation tattoos pigment into the scalp to imitate shaved stubble or to reduce the contrast between scalp and hair; it is semi-permanent, needs a practitioner who has been told the medical history, and fades over years. Partial hairpieces, toppers and integration pieces sit between fibres and a full wig and suit a patch of loss, which is the usual pattern after radiotherapy.
Surgical hair restoration in people treated for cancer is reported, but thinly. In the largest published series of persistent radiation-induced alopecia, 71 patients, two responded to hair transplantation and one to plastic surgical reconstruction; those are case numbers, not an evidence base. Transplantation moves follicles from the back of the scalp, which is spared in pattern hair loss but not necessarily spared by chemotherapy or by a radiation field, so whether donor hair will survive is a question for a surgeon who understands what the treatment did. Nothing here has a randomised trial behind it in any population with cancer, which is why the grade is insufficient: not that these do not work, but that nobody has measured them in this setting.
Concealment changes what light does at the scalp, by adding fibre to existing shafts or pigment to bare skin. Restoration moves follicles from an area that still grows into one that does not, and depends on the donor area having been spared.
Query for this technology: (TITLE:"Camouflage and restoration: fibres, micropigmentation, transplantation" OR ABSTRACT:"Camouflage and restoration: fibres, micropigmentation, transplantation") AND (cancer OR tumor OR tumour OR oncology OR carcinoma OR lymphoma OR leukemia OR leukaemia OR myeloma OR sarcoma OR melanoma OR glioma). Results are unfiltered search hits about Camouflage and restoration: fibres, micropigmentation, transplantation, not a curated reading list.
Shares Persistent chemotherapy-induced alopecia, Minoxidil for persistent chemotherapy- and endocrine-therapy hair loss, Toxicity and quality of life are undervalued and the tags complementary, supportive-care, hair-loss.
Shares Persistent chemotherapy-induced alopecia, Minoxidil for persistent chemotherapy- and endocrine-therapy hair loss, Toxicity and quality of life are undervalued and the tags complementary, supportive-care, hair-loss.
Shares Persistent chemotherapy-induced alopecia, Minoxidil for persistent chemotherapy- and endocrine-therapy hair loss, Toxicity and quality of life are undervalued and the tags complementary, supportive-care, hair-loss.
Shares Minoxidil for persistent chemotherapy- and endocrine-therapy hair loss, Toxicity and quality of life are undervalued and the tags complementary, supportive-care, hair-loss.
Shares Scalp care during and after cancer treatment, Wigs, cranial prostheses and head coverings, Persistent chemotherapy-induced alopecia, Minoxidil for persistent chemotherapy- and endocrine-therapy hair loss and the tags complementary, supportive-care, hair-loss.
Shares Wigs, cranial prostheses and head coverings, Minoxidil for persistent chemotherapy- and endocrine-therapy hair loss, Toxicity and quality of life are undervalued and the tags complementary, supportive-care.
Shares Scalp care during and after cancer treatment, Wigs, cranial prostheses and head coverings, Persistent chemotherapy-induced alopecia, Minoxidil for persistent chemotherapy- and endocrine-therapy hair loss.
Shares Toxicity and quality of life are undervalued and the tags complementary, supportive-care.