Details about Kate Middleton’s cancer treatments have been trickling out as the royal enjoys her cancer being in remission. But according to InTouch Weekly, one of the treatments she may have used as part of her “preventative chemotherapy” treatment was called Cold Cap therapy. The future queen spoke with a fellow cancer patient with PEOPLE magazine.
The special treatment helps to “reduce hair loss caused by chemotherapy” and works by circulating a liquid or gel that is cooled inside the device. “There are two main types of scalp cooling devices: automated and manual,” the American Cancer Society says. “You might hear people call all of these devices “scalp cooling caps” or “cold caps”. But the two types of devices work in different ways.”
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The automatic version works by connecting the cap to a device that automatically circulates a cooled liquid or gel to a specific temp. The manually cooled version is placed in a freezer or dry ice before wear by a patient. These must be a lot colder than the automatic caps, as they start to warm as soon as you place them on a patient’s head. A new one must be switched in every 30 minutes. Automatic are regulated by the FDA, but the manual version is not. The science behind it makes sense.
“Cold restricts blood flow. When you cool your scalp, you temporarily decrease blood flow to that area. This reduces the amount of chemo that gets to your hair follicle cells,” the American Cancer Society shares. “For some people, protecting hair follicle cells from being damaged or killed by chemo can prevent or reduce scalp hair loss.”
The Cold Caps cannot be used with blood cancer patients, and are only approved for solid tumor cancers. Middleton talked about the treatment in January, speaking with another patient named Katherine Field as she was undergoing the treatment.
“It was just like talking to a friend about a really horrible time in life and how you find ways of getting through it. ‘Finding the new normal’ is what she said, which is absolutely true,” Field told PEOPLE. “She just said that she didn’t have to have it. For her to lose her hair, which is so iconic, would have been awful. Everyone loves her hair!”
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