Cancer patient’s grey hair ‘turned black gradually’ during therapy, study says

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A cancer drug used to treat advanced kidney cancer appears to have reversed grey hair in an older man, a rare side effect that researchers say could offer new clues about how hair colour might be restored.

Researchers at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Bilaspur (AIIMS Bilaspur), published the study in BMJ Case Reports on June 27. It describes a man in his late 60s who was being treated for metastatic renal cell carcinoma with axitinib, a targeted cancer drug. After six months on the medication, his hair began changing colour.

“The patient observed that the hair on his moustache and scalp, which had previously turned grey due to ageing, turned black gradually, starting from the margins of the hairline on the scalp,” study authors Avita Dhiman, Pravesh Dhiman and Manju Daroach wrote.

They added the effect continued to progress over the following months without the use of hair dye or other treatments.

Axitinib belongs to a class of cancer therapies known as tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs), which block specific cell signals that promote tumour growth. In this case, researchers believe the drug also triggered melanogenesis, the process that produces melanin, the pigment responsible for hair, skin and eye colour.

“Although several TKIs have been associated with hair repigmentation, this appears to be the first documented case of axitinib-induced hair repigmentation,” the authors wrote.

They point to axitinib’s role in blocking signalling pathways linked to pigment production, saying the drug may help protect the cells that produce melanin from damage and promote a key enzyme in melanin synthesis.

The man’s hair gradually darkened from the front of his scalp toward the back, with more of the occipital region turning black by the end of the ninth month. Despite the unusual side effect, doctors chose to continue the cancer treatment because the patient was responding well to it.

“Our hair … has some degree of melanin to give it its colour, otherwise it would be white or grey,” explained Dr. Monica Li, clinical assistant professor with the Department of Dermatology and Skin Science at the University of British Columbia, in a video interview with CTVNews.ca.

“As we get older, stress, certain medications, poor diet, vitamin deficiencies … could decrease how robust hair growth is, but also the colour,” she said. “That’s why as we get older people show gray and white hair, because the melanin production is less.”

Li cautioned, however, that while the case is intriguing, it remains an isolated finding.

“It is a case report, meaning it’s a sample size of one,” she said, adding there need to be more reports to confirm if this is “a consistent observation.”

Li says hair colour changes have been observed with other TKIs, such as sorafenib, and the effect is often temporary, meaning that once the patient stops taking the drug, the hair tends to return to its original state.

The researchers also acknowledge that hair colour changes aren’t unheard of with cancer drugs, saying up to 30 per cent of people receiving targeted therapies may notice some kind of pigmentation shift.

While the greying reversal was not the intended goal of treatment, researchers say it’s a sign of how certain drugs may influence biological systems far beyond cancer.

“The observation … could have broader implications for understanding their role in non-cancer-related processes, reversing grey hair and developing specific drugs … which may be used to reverse greying of hair,” the authors conclude.

But Li emphasized that the drug in question is not something to be taken lightly.

“This is an anti-cancer medication,” she said, warning that there are serious potential side effects, from high blood pressure and diarrhea to rare, but life-threatening events like hypertensive crisis and blood clots.

“We have to understand that in general, medications have their advantages and disadvantages, and all medications have side effects,” Li explained. “Some are common, some are not so common, but the uncommon ones are devastating and life-threatening.”

She added that while repigmentation may seem like a cosmetic bonus for patients already undergoing cancer treatment, the risks of using such a drug solely for reversing grey hair would far outweigh the benefits.

“We all age and it’s totally normal to see changes in the colour of our hair,” Li said. “We’re far, far away from even considering using an anti-cancer medication, just so that we can have hair greying improve.”