Penguin Cold Caps Good Morning America

Hair brings one's self-image into focus; it is vanity's proving ground. Hair is terribly personal, a tangle of mysterious prejudices. ~Shana Alexander

The Penguin Cold Caps made it onto Good Morning America. I have not seen it yet because I am at work. I did DVR it. I saw their story online. Here is the link:

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/OnCallPlus/cold-cap-therapy-women-chemotherapy-hair/story?id=11985624

Here is a link to the video:
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/OnCall/video/cold-cap-save-hair-chemo-11991988

There are some things I disagree with especially where they say it is linked to increased scalp metastasis. This is not true. It has been studied and there were only 2 cases out of 7800 people in the study.

In early stage breast cancer, the incidence of the scalp as the first site of recurrence is very low. Dean et al (1983) found only 2 patients with scalp metastases in 7800 women with breast cancer treated with mastectomy, with or without post operative adjuvant therapy, an incidence of 0.025%. Clearly, primary metastases are rare.

Does scalp cooling increase the incidence of scalp recurrence in early stage breast cancer?
The most extensive literature report on scalp cooling was conducted by Tollenaar (1994) who reviewed 25 publications (1973 - 88) with a total of 1282 patients. No case of scalp metastases was reported in scalp cooled patients receiving adjuvant chemotherapy. In their own scalp cooling study of 35 adjuvant treated breast cancer patients no case of scalp metastases was found with a mean follow up of over 4 years. More recent published studies involving scalp cooled adjuvant breast cancer patients have not reported any scalp metastases (Ron 1997, Lemanger 1997).

Here is a link to breastcancer.org and their discussion on this topic:
http://community.breastcancer.org/forum/6/topic/735873?page=1

If you want to get the Penguin Cold Caps or talk with their inventor Frank Fronda here is their link:
http://www.msc-worldwide.com/

If anyone is reading this to see my cold cap experience it my first chemo was 12/7/2009. There are pictures from each chemo and the first set was posted on 12/9/2009.

If anyone is considering this I am a big fan. Its not just about the hair. It is about winning that battle and regaining control over your destiny. Breast cancer took a lot from me. I couldn't let it have everything.

To everyone newly diagnosed I wish you strength in your fight.