Reducing Chemotherapy Induced Alopecia: Scalp Cooling for Reduced Docetaxel Transport
Since chemotherapy drugs target rapidly dividing cells, hair follicles are often damaged and many cancer patients develop chemotherapy-induced alopecia (CIA). One strategy used to combat hair loss is scalp cooling, where chemotherapy recipients wear a cold cap before, during, and after infusion. Scalp cooling causes vasoconstriction and decreases drug uptake by follicular cells, thus reducing the cells’ overall exposure to the cytotoxic drugs. Our one-dimensional model seeks to understand how the heat transfer of scalp cooling affects the mass transfer of drug diffusion to the hair follicle. We will first model the pre-cooling time, where the cap is placed on the head for thirty minutes before infusion. This will show the temperature drop over time in each layer of the scalp. Then, we will model the transport of the drug during and after the infusion is completed. Drug concentration at the follicle will first increase and then decrease after infusion ends since the drug is metabolized throughout the body and the overall systemic concentration drops. After the model is set up, we will vary the temperature of the cold cap to determine how this affects steady-state temperature and drug concentration at the follicle level. We predicted that by decreasing the upper boundary condition representing the temperature of he cold cap, the scalp would reach lower temperatures and there would be lower drug concentrations at the hair follicle due to a greater degree of vasoconstriction. Our results showed that while the scalp reached lower temperatures, the concentration at the follicle did not change significantly. Decreasing the cold cap temperature only slowed drug transport. This indicates that the physical scenario may not be fully understood and may explain why cold caps have variable efficacy.