Dignity Health and the Comprehensive Blood & Cancer Center highlighted an advancement in local cancer treatment Tuesday morning.<\/p>\n
However, this treatment, called cold capping or scalp cooling, doesn\u2019t help patients beat cancer so much as it may help them maintain their identity, their optimism and their sense of control by keeping their hair when chemotherapy might otherwise cause it to fall out.<\/p>\n
At a news conference held just outside the Thomas M. Hardt Tower at Mercy Hospital Southwest, medical professionals, hospital executives and community supporters listened as Toni Harper, vice president of philanthropy, welcomed visitors and members of local news organizations.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen someone hears the words, \u2018You have cancer,\u2019 life changes in an instant,\u201d Harper told the gathering. \u201cAlong with the decisions about treatment come deeply personal concerns about family and work, and what will the months ahead bring.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor many patients, losing their hair is an especially difficult part,\u201d Harper said. \u201cIt can affect how they see themselves, and how much of their diagnosis they choose to share. Scalp cooling offers eligible patients another option, as they navigate treatment.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Dignity Health Infusion Center at CBCC is the first and only medical facility in Kern County to offer cold capping technology, said Dr. Hemmal Kothary, the chief medical officer for Dignity Health\u2019s Central California Division.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen patients look in the mirror, cold capping allows them to see themselves and not the disease,\u201d Kothary said. \u201cIn a situation where so much feels out of control, (this) technology restores a sense of normalcy and autonomy. It also provides essential privacy, giving individuals the power to choose who they share their diagnosis with.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis stuff is pretty darn amazing,\u201d Kothary said of the technology. \u201cIt reduces your chance of losing your hair by up to 60 or 70%.\u201d<\/p>\n
The therapy can help patients prevent or significantly reduce chemotherapy-induced hair loss. By cooling the scalp during treatment, the technology constricts blood vessels and reduces the amount of chemotherapy drug that reaches the hair follicles.<\/p>\n
Dr. Ravi Patel, director of medical oncology and hematology at CBCC, was expected to be at Tuesday\u2019s news conference, but due to a patient care need, he was unable to attend, organizers said. However, Patel was quoted in a news release.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor many patients, hair loss is one of the most visible and distressing side effects of chemotherapy,\u201d he said. \u201cStudies show that scalp cooling can be highly effective, with many patients retaining a significant percentage of their hair.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile individual results vary based on the chemotherapy regimen, the impact on a patient\u2019s cancer journey can be profound.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cancer patient Tiffany Rowland is only 40, but last summer, the wife, mother and special education teacher received some gut-wrenching news.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn July 7, I was diagnosed with stage three, triple negative breast cancer,\u201d she told The Californian. \u201cTriple negative is a very aggressive one.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was life-altering,\u201d Rowland said. \u201cYou think all the negative things, and then you look it up on the internet, and you think, \u2018She said, chemo.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
So far, Rowland has had 14 chemo treatments, and her hair looks great.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m halfway through my journey, so I\u2019m not even almost done. So there\u2019s the anxiety, there\u2019s the what\u2019s going to happen next.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAm I going to see my kids graduate?\u201d<\/p>\n
The Dignity Health people didn\u2019t approach her about being their first cold capping patient. It was Rowland who asked about how she might be able to save her hair.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause my number one thing is my hair,\u201d she said, laughing. \u201cI wanted my kids to see some kind of normal me. I wanted them to be able to see me, not my cancer, when they looked at me \u2014 and I wanted to see me when I looked in the mirror.\u201d<\/p>\n
And as a teacher, she was worried her students would be distracted if she lost her hair.<\/p>\n
Indeed, Rowland may be more worried about the people around her than she is about herself.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt alters my life,\u201d she said, \u201cbut I feel like I\u2019m a grown up, and I can handle it.\u201d<\/p>\n
A year ago, she lost her mom, and her children lost their grandmother.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I was like, that\u2019s going to be the worst thought in their head. That\u2019s what I was worried about the most.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like this was something I could really control.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes it\u2019s not even just about the hair,\u201d Rowland said. \u201cIt changes the narrative.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf someone sees you on the street and they can tell you have cancer, it\u2019s like, \u2018Oh, my God, I\u2019m so sorry.\u2019 When people see me in here, they\u2019re like, \u2018Oh my God, you\u2019re doing great. You still have your hair.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cSo it kind of changes the narrative and it makes me feel better.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dignity Health and the Comprehensive Blood & Cancer Center highlighted an advancement in local cancer treatment Tuesday morning.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":487963,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[151,153,152],"class_list":["post-487962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield-headlines","tag-bakersfield-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=487962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487962\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/487963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=487962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=487962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=487962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}