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Chemotherapy and radiotherapy can cause hair to be lost from the head and other parts of the body. Hair loss due to cancer treatment is usually temporary, but it is a significant event nevertheless.
If you are receiving chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy and are experiencing, or are worried about, hair loss, you may find the following information helpful and reassuring.
The hair that we see on our heads and bodies is actually dead cells linked by a hardening protein called keratin.
Hair cells are constantly developing, dividing and dying at the root of each hair (just below the skin's surface). New cells forming in the root push older, dead cells towards the skin's surface, where they are joined and become hardened by keratin.
Unless hair cells are damaged (for example, by radiotherapy or chemotherapy), this cycle of cell development, division and death continues, the hair strand lengthening as keratinised cells are pushed from the root.
We are grateful to the Anti-Cancer Foundation of South Australia for its permission to use this material.
