Hair loss is a frequent side effect of chemotherapy. It happens because chemotherapy attacks all rapidly dividing cells – not just the cancerous cells but also healthy ones.

The cells in hair follicles are some of the fastest dividing cells in the body, and as such they are vulnerable to being destroyed during chemotherapy. So chemo patients may lose some or all of their hair within a few weeks of beginning treatment.

Different chemo drugs cause different patterns of hair loss: some affect only the hair on the head, others may affect eyebrows, eyelashes, and hair on the rest of the body.

Generally, lost hair eventually begins to grow back after chemotherapy is concluded. Patients may expect to see a faint fuzz within two to three weeks. It usually takes about a month for hair to resume growing at its normal rate.

However, some women who have undergone chemotherapy for breast cancer have reported their lost hair never grew back. Fortunately, these cases are very rare, and they usually happen after several years’ worth of intense chemotherapy.

Since different chemo drugs affect hair differently, certain drugs may more likely be associated with permanent hair loss. Some research suggests this permanent hair loss could be connected to the drug Taxotere.

Taxotere for Chemotherapy

Taxotere, also known as docetaxel, is a drug used for chemotherapy, generally in combination with other drugs but sometimes by itself. It’s been on the market since initially earning FDA approval in 1996.

Taxotere is now approved as a chemotherapy treatment for locally advanced or metastatic breast cancer after other treatments have failed. It’s also approved to treat prostate cancer, non-small cell lung cancer, gastric adenocarcinoma, and head and neck cancer.

Thousands of patients have received Taxotere for cancer treatment. In Canada in 2009, about 6,500 women were treated with Taxotere for breast cancer. Total sales that year among Canadian hospitals and drugs stores topped $70 million.

In some cases, Taxotere offers cancer patients a shorter course of chemotherapy. A Taxotere regimen may take only four cycles, for example, compared to twelve cycled needed with the drug Taxol. But between those two drugs, Taxotere presents the greater risk of hair loss.

Does Taxotere Cause Hair Loss?

One study published in the journal Annals of Oncology in October 2012 examined the experiences of 20 women who had suffered hair loss after being treated for breast cancer using a regimen that included Taxotere, among other drugs.

The researchers noted no spontaneous regrowth of scalp hair in any of these women. After ruling out other possible factors, the researchers concluded that permanent and severe alopecia, or hair loss, was a complication of the drug regimen used to treat these women’s breast cancer.

Some women who lost hair after taking Taxotere say they were never adequately warned about the possibility of permanent hair loss. These women complain they continue to look ill even after their cancer has been resolved. One former Taxotere patient says the results have been “devastating” and have prevented her from resuming a normal life.