There are few solutions for preventing chemotherapy-induced alopecia or baldness, outside of cold caps which can be expensive and have extensive side effects.
Dr. Bryan Smith is an associate professor in MSU’s Department of Biomedical Engineering.
After speaking with former cancer patients, nurses, and oncology teams, Smith led his researchers to develop shampoo-like hydro gels that may help protect patients’ hair during treatment.
“We designed them to be put on the scalp and to be viscous and very thick when they’re on so it’ s not going to come off and be easy to rinse off once you’re ready.”
The gel contains the drugs lidocaine and adrenalone and prevents most of the chemotherapy drugs from reaching hair follicles by restricting the blood flow to the scalp.
All components in the gel have been tested, approved and used previously.
“Putting it all together is what's new, The gel is a new drug delivery device for this purpose and the drugs intentionally are those that are already well known because we didn't want to go through 10-15 years of regulatory processes in order to allow approval.”
Smith says next steps include working with federal regulatory agencies to begin clinical trials and securing funds to manufacture the gels once approved.
“We would need substantial funding, especially if we need to do more animal studies, but even if all we need to do is scale up, proper scale up approaches and the ability to make these in GMP regulated facilities. I will still need substantial funding to do that.”
Details of Smith’s work are published in a paper in Biomaterials Advances.
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