Preventing drug-induced alopecia
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Date publication
mai 2009
Lien Pubmed
Résumé
Alopecia is one of the most dreaded side effects of chemotherapy, notably by women with breast cancer. It entails a deterioration of body image resulting in a negative self-image; a woman's femininity suffers. Current methods to prevent chemically induced alopecia are insufficiently effective and inconvenient. It has recently been shown that the oral administration of L-cystine combined with pyridoxin could prevent alopecia induced by tobacco in mice. Alopecia induced by tobacco involves apoptosis mechanisms as in drug-induced alopecia. This observation instigated an in vitro study of hair follicle papillae dermis cells subjected to doxorubicin at the Skin Biology Laboratory of the Universite de Franche-Comte (France), aiming to investigate the effect of combining L-cystine and pyridoxin on apoptosis and the oxidoreduction reactions on this model. This study showed that the apoptosis induced by doxorubicin was significantly reduced in presence of the cystine + pyridoxin and that the glutathione rate was significantly higher in presence of cystine. In vivo studies are now needed to confirm the results obtained in vitro and demonstrate that the presence of cystine can counterbalance the toxic effect of the free radicals generated by doxorubicin and prevent or limit drug-induced alopecia. (c) 2009 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved
Référence
Ann Dermatol Venereol. 2009 May;136 Suppl. 2:S29-32