A Pennsylvania woman has filed a Taxotere breast cancer treatment lawsuit against the makers of her chemotherapy drug, alleging that she suffered irreversible hair loss as a result of taking Taxotere.

Plaintiff Katherine S., a resident of Westmoreland County, Pa., says she began cancer treatments in December 2010. She began taking Taxotere, a chemotherapy drug manufactured by Sanofi Aventis, at that time.

Taxotere is a chemotherapy drug used to target cancer cells and is administered intravenously. A common side effect of cancer treatments like chemotherapy includes hair loss. Most people undergoing chemotherapy, including Taxotere breast cancer treatment therapy, expect to lose their hair.

However, some patients who have taken Taxotere have discovered that they do not have the ability to regrow their hair.

Katherine says that when she began undergoing Taxotere breast cancer treatment, she believed that her hair would eventually return. With nearly all chemotherapy cancer treatments, the hair of the patient begins to grow back when they stop treatment.

According to her Taxotere breast cancer treatment lawsuit, she was “aware of the potential side effect of temporary hair loss, but moved forward with the treatment with the understanding that the side effect was only temporary in nature.”

In fact, Katherine believed that her hair would grow back within a reasonable amount of time. She claims that she did not receive any warning from Sanofi or her doctor that she might not expect to have her hair regrow.

There was no written or verbal warning, nor was there any label on the drug itself indicating that she might not experience hair regrowth, her Taxotere breast cancer treatment lawsuit asserts.

She claims that since she stopped using Taxotere, she has not experienced any hair regrowth at all and is suffering from permanent and irreversible hair loss. Additionally, it should be noted that her Taxotere breast cancer treatment lawsuit claims that she did not suffer from any hair loss or balding previous to taking Taxotere.

In fact, Katherine says she did not even know that Taxotere could be responsible for this irreversible hair loss condition until many years later when she watched a television commercial outlining the possible long term side effects for Taxotere.

In her Taxotere breast cancer treatment lawsuit, Katherine is bringing forth claims of failure to warn and negligence.

What is Taxotere?

Taxotere is a chemotherapy drug primarily used in conjunction with other treatments to treat breast cancer. It was approved in 1999 to treat breast cancer, but can also treat lung cancer, head and neck cancer and prostate cancer.

However, after reports of women not being able to regrow hair after Taxotere use and experiencing irreversible alopecia, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ordered Sanofi Aventis to change their drug label outlining the possibility of permanent hair loss. But for many patients, it was too late.

Taxotere targets quickly growing cells of the body, which include both cancer cells as well as hair cells. In fact, the cells that are responsible for hair growth are among some of the quickest growing cells in the body.

Many patients, like Katherine, say they have experienced not only the loss that comes with fighting cancer, but additional emotional distress upon learning their hair will never grow back.

This Taxotere Breast Cancer Treatment Lawsuit is Case No. 2:18-cv-00167-CB in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania.