It is a recognized fact that anticancer drugs can cause hair loss. The reason is that anticancer drugs will kill those cells that divide and reproduce rapidly in the human body. Coincidentally, hair follicle cells are one of the cells with the fastest division rate in the body. As a result, they are "wrongly killed" by the powerful power of anticancer drugs. It has been suggested that the use of molecular targeted anticancer drugs that are more lethal to cancer cells (but have less impact on normal cells) will help patients get rid of hair loss - frustratingly, hair loss has become a common adverse reaction of molecular targeted therapy.
So, in addition to the well-known anti-cancer drugs, which other drugs can also cause hair loss? Illness is enough to annoy people. It is even more sad to "cure" nothing on your head due to treatment. The sense of responsibility drives medical researchers to collect and sort out many cases of hair loss caused by drugs (other than anti-cancer drugs), and make classification and statistics. We just take this opportunity to learn about the relevant situation (Table 1).
Table 1 Distribution of hair loss drugs
In the above "blacklist", more than 120 literature reports of hair loss caused by various drugs were collected, involving 50 drug varieties. We can see from the table that anti infective drugs account for a large proportion. It is really surprising that household standing drugs such as norfloxacin, dexamethasone and morpholine are also among the hair killers. In these cases, the severity of hair loss in patients is not consistent. Some people fall off completely, and some are spot loss; And many people's hair grows out gradually after stopping or changing drugs.
Obviously, most drug hair loss events have not been reported, but Table 1 does have reference value, because even the preliminary listing work is enough to have a warning effect - humble aspirin can also make the user's thick hair drift with the wind!
In fact, the medical profession has not fully understood the detailed causes of hair loss caused by various drugs, which may be related to the individual differences of drug users. If only from the phenomenon, the patient's hair loss will have obvious inflammation, which is a signal of skin damage. Therefore, it is believed that various chemicals accumulated by long-term medication are likely to cause damage to skin or hair follicle tissue.
Researchers can warn that when using drugs like those listed in Table 1, it is particularly necessary to strengthen observation. Once hair loss is found, it should be treated as soon as possible under the guidance of doctors, and the development of hair loss should be gradually controlled by reducing the drug dose or changing the drug variety.
reference
Literature analysis of 126 cases of drug-induced hair loss Chen Shufeng Tianjin pharmacy 2013 Vol. 25 No. 5
Hair loss caused by non anticancer drugs, Li zhanmei, capital medicine, 1999, 6 (1)
Clinical analysis of drug-induced hair loss Li Xiaoling et al. China Minkang medicine, December 2009, Volume 21, second half of the month, issue 24