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Gel caps frozen in a cooler or dry ice and changed every 20 to 30 minutes by the patient or a helper, the older and portable alternative to scalp-cooling machines. None holds an FDA clearance for preventing hair loss.
Before machine scalp coolers were cleared, hair preservation meant a series of frozen gel caps, swapped as each warmed. They are still used, rented by the month and carried in by patients, because they need no machine in the unit. Every FDA authorisation under the scalp-cooling classification (21 CFR 878.4360, product code PMC) belongs to a refrigerated machine; no manual cap appears there. Penguin's own page says only that the materials are approved in Canada and by the FDA, and a gel cap listed by Polygel LLC as "Chemo Cold Cap" is registered as a reusable hot or cold pack (Class I, exempt), not cleared for alopecia.
Published results are single-institution series. In a retrospective study of 100 patients using Penguin caps, 92.1 per cent of 89 evaluable kept at least half their hair, with 71.4 per cent success on doxorubicin-containing regimens against 95.7 per cent with paclitaxel and 96.6 per cent with docetaxel. Without a randomised comparison against machines, the trade-off is practical: caps are portable and need no unit equipment, but the temperature varies as each cap warms and a helper must change them on time.
Frozen gel caps cool the scalp to narrow its blood vessels during the infusion peak, as machine coolers do, but the temperature rises between changes.
Query for this technology: (TITLE:"Manual cold caps" OR ABSTRACT:"Manual cold caps" OR TITLE:"Penguin and other frozen-gel caps" OR ABSTRACT:"Penguin and other frozen-gel caps" OR TITLE:"Cold caps" OR ABSTRACT:"Cold caps" OR TITLE:"Penguin Cold Caps" OR ABSTRACT:"Penguin Cold Caps") 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 Manual cold caps (Penguin and other frozen-gel caps), not a curated reading list.
Shares Finish scalp cooling away from the infusion chair, Comfort devices at the chemotherapy chair: scalp cooling, cold caps, limb cryocompression and infusion chairs, Scalp cooling (cold caps: DigniCap, Paxman) and the tag machines-wave3.
Shares Comfort devices at the chemotherapy chair: scalp cooling, cold caps, limb cryocompression and infusion chairs, Scalp cooling (cold caps: DigniCap, Paxman), Breast cancer (all types) and the tag machines-wave3.
Shares Comfort devices at the chemotherapy chair: scalp cooling, cold caps, limb cryocompression and infusion chairs, Scalp cooling (cold caps: DigniCap, Paxman) and the tag machines-wave3.
Shares Comfort devices at the chemotherapy chair: scalp cooling, cold caps, limb cryocompression and infusion chairs, Scalp cooling (cold caps: DigniCap, Paxman), Breast cancer (all types) and the tag machines-wave3.
Shares Oncology infusion and treatment chairs, Comfort devices at the chemotherapy chair: scalp cooling, cold caps, limb cryocompression and infusion chairs, Scalp cooling (cold caps: DigniCap, Paxman), Docetaxel and the tag machines-wave3.
Shares Comfort devices at the chemotherapy chair: scalp cooling, cold caps, limb cryocompression and infusion chairs, Paclitaxel / nab-paclitaxel, Breast cancer (all types) and the tag machines-wave3.
Shares Comfort devices at the chemotherapy chair: scalp cooling, cold caps, limb cryocompression and infusion chairs, Paclitaxel / nab-paclitaxel and the tag machines-wave3.
Shares Oncology infusion and treatment chairs, Comfort devices at the chemotherapy chair: scalp cooling, cold caps, limb cryocompression and infusion chairs, Scalp cooling (cold caps: DigniCap, Paxman), Toxicity and quality of life are undervalued and the tag machines-wave3.
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