Sanofi Aventis is facing a new product liability lawsuit from a Texas woman alleging the company’s Taxotere breast cancer drug caused her to experience permanent hair loss.

This condition, also known as alopecia, has become widely associated with the popularly used Taxotere breast cancer drug due to the numerous reports of hair loss.

Plaintiff June D. had been diagnosed with stage three breast cancer in June 2010, and decided upon using Taxotere after discussing treatment options with her oncologist.

Taxotere is popularly used for breast cancer treatment, and June had used the drug for all six rounds of her chemotherapy treatment.

From August 2010 to November 2010, June had undergone intense chemotherapy treatment using the Taxotere breast cancer drug.

At some point during her treatment, June had developed hair loss and has never been able to recover from this impairment.

It is not uncommon for patients to experience hair loss during chemotherapy treatment, as these drugs target rapidly growing cells. Hair follicles are some of the fastest reproducing cells in the body, which often makes them the first targets for the chemotherapy drugs.

However, permanent alopecia is fairly uncommon in cancer patients, as the patient eventually recover from the drug’s effects and their hair returns.

Taxotere Breast Cancer Drug Hair Loss Allegations

The Taxotere breast cancer drug was approved by the FDA in the mid 1990s to treat different forms of cancer.

While this drug has helped numerous patients, this medication has been linked to permanent hair loss in multiple studies.

Each of these studies indicate the Taxotere breast cancer drug was much more likely to cause patients develop permanent hair loss, compared to other medications.

One of these studies was published in 2012 in the European Society for Medical Oncology stated “permanent and severe alopecia is a newly reported complication of the FEC 100-docetaxel breast cancer regimen.”

Docetaxel is the main ingredient of Taxotere, and has been used for various forms of cancer treatment.

The Taxotere breast cancer drug has been associated with permanent alopecia in the United States, since the FDA warned the public against this correlation in December 2015.

The agency had issued a warning label update to include permanent hair loss on Taxotere’s warning label.

It is important to note that Sanofi Aventis had previously stated that hair would “generally grow back”, even though there injury reports indicating otherwise.

Many allege that Sanofi Aventis knew of the dangers for years, based on the fact that European Taxotere label much earlier.

June is filing this Taxotere lawsuit seeking damages for multiple counts of negligence and failure to warn.

This Taxotere Breast Cancer Drug Lawsuit is Case No. 6:16-cv-01548 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, Lafayette Division.