Pretreatment of epidermal growth factor promotes primary hair recovery via the dystrophic anagen pathway after chemotherapy-induced alopecia.

Epidermal growth factor (EGF) is not only a cell growth stimulant but also has a catagen-inducing effect. Because chemotherapeutic agents primarily damage anagen hair follicles, it would be important to investigate whether catagen inducers have beneficial effects in chemotherapy-induced alopecia (CIA). We pretreated hair follicles with topical EGF-liposomal solution in the C57BL/6 mouse model of cyclophosphamide-induced alopecia and observed the catagen-inducing property and damage response pathway after CIA. We confirmed that topical EGF application induced a catagen-like stage and found that these catagen-like hairs were protected from chemotherapy-mediated damage. Moreover, our results showed that EGF treatment favoured primary hair recovery via the dystrophic anagen pathway after CIA. Given that hair follicles subjected to less severe chemotherapeutic insult enter the dystrophic anagen pathway followed by primary recovery, the results of this study suggest that catagen inducers could be useful as a new alopecia-protection strategy, especially in the context of CIA.