Hair Foundation Blog

Many of have a relationship with our hairdresser that goes beyond our monthly haircut, styling or color. Some of us think of them as our personal stylist, confidante, therapist or even a friend that we socialize with occasionally.

Now there may be a new role from your hairdresser: a cancer screener.

In a new survey of 203 Houston, Texas hair salons, it found that over a third of hair stylists check at least half of their clients for scalp moles. And about a third said they looked at more than half of clients’ necks. Most have referred them to doctors and the mole may have been determined to be cancerous.

The survey also discovered that 50 percent of the hairdressers were interested in learning more about cancer in effort to further the reach of doctors screening for the disease, according to findings in the Archives of Dermatology.

The team conducted the survey in January 2010.

Alan Geller, from Harvard’s School of Public Health who led the study, explained that more than 80 percent of common skin cancers occur on our scalps, necks and faces. Melanomas, the most dangerous form of skin cancer, can be “disproportionately fatal” on the scalp. Geller noted that a thorough head and hair exam isn’t usually standard procedure when visiting the doctor.

In response to the survey and the hairdresser’s willingness to learn more about this, Geller said they’d like to train as many hair professionals as possible.

Their start will begin with Geller and his team working with the Melanoma Foundation of New England. They plan to create a statewide program to train Massachusetts hair professionals to recognize potential signs of skin cancer.

This should go live in late 2011.

Many of us suffer from an itchy scalp from time to time whether it’s due to a dirty scalp, sunburn, or something as common as dandruff. When people hear the word dandruff, they immediately think of dirty hair and white flakes on clothing. It can be perceived as a negative condition and many people are embarrassed about it.

At Hair Foundation, we define it as

“the all-encompassing term for scales shed from the scalp, there are a number of different and distinct causes of scalp scaling…The most common, and usually unprogressive, type of scalp scaling (pityriasis-shedding of bran-like flakes) is a slight increase in turnover on epidermal cells, with or without an increase in scalp oiliness (seborrhea).”

Many times this can be controlled by a dandruff shampoo but sometimes it can be a sign of a more serious condition. One of our partner’s Proctor and Gamble Co., (P&G) has recently been using a technique called metabolomics.  This process allows scientists to track the “metabolic processes in cells by identifying the chemicals, or metabolites, left behind from these processes,” according to a recent Wall Street Journal article.

P&G says they have used this technique to determine the severity of someone’s dandruff and from this, it helps them develop improved dandruff treatments. Currently assessing new treatments requires people to comb through others’ scalps and rate the level of dandruff, which is a tedious and unreliable process.

The company has used metabolomics in other studies for dandruff and believes it may lead to additional treatments.

To learn more about this technique and dandruff, here’s a link to the article.