Man Delighted After Leukemia Treatment Turned His Gray Hair Back to Brown

A man has been left delighted after drugs being used to treat his cancer turned his hair from gray back to brown.

The 51-year-old had been diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML), a relatively rare type of cancer of the blood and bone marrow.

American Cancer Society figures show that around 8,800 people in the U.S. are diagnosed with CML every year, with men accounting for just under two thirds of cases. Over 1,200 people die from CML in the U.S. annually.

The cancer develops as a result of a spontaneous chromosome mutation. The mutation forms an abnormal gene called BCR-ABL, which turns a normal cell into a CML cell.

This type of leukemia normally progresses slowly and many people do not develop any symptoms until the cancer is at later stages. Symptoms of CML are often vague and can be caused by a host of other problems. They include weakness, fatigue, night sweats, weight loss, bone pain, an enlarged spleen, feeling full after only eating a small amount and stomach pain.

The man was being treated for CML at the Albert Schweitzer Hospital in the Netherlands. He had been started on nilotinib, which is a tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI), 18 months earlier.

TKI therapy was introduced as a treatment for CML in 2001. These drugs target the BCR-ABL protein (known as a tyrosine kinase) that allows the cancer cells to grow and reproduce. Before TKI therapy was introduced, CML was a life-threatening disease. However, many people with this type of cancer can now manage the condition by taking drugs to inhibit the cells.

Since starting nilotinib—known by the brand name Tasigna, one of the many approved TKI drugs—the man's hair had changed color. This change is believed to be a side effect of nilotinib.

Details of the case are published in the NEJM.

"The patient had noticed, much to his delight, the gradual repigmentation of his gray hair to its original color," Camille C.B. Kockerols and Peter E. Westerweel wrote in the report.

"During the same period, he had not started any other new medications and had used no hair-coloring products. On physical examination, his previously gray hair was noted to have become brown. No other changes in his hair, skin, or mucosal pigmentation were observed."

Westerweel told Newsweek he did not know when the patient had first turned gray, but said it was many years before he started on nilotinib. "This was the first patient in whom I had become aware of this occurrence," he said, adding that after he reported the case on the hospital website, another patient came forward to say her hair had changed color after starting nilotinib treatment.

There are multiple possible side effects for nilotinib, such as rashes, itching, nausea, loss of appetite, tiredness, muscle cramps and heartburn. More serious side effects include unusual bleeding or bruising, blood in urine, chest pain and shortness of breath.

In some cases, hair loss is reported.

Westerweel said he believes hair color change with this drug may be an "underrecognized phenomenon."

He said a review article of over 8,000 people found as many as 17 percent of patients on various anti-cancer treatments experience pigmentary changes to their hair or skin.

Kockerols and Westerweel said the man was responding well to nilotinib and the change to his hair color was the result of the TKI drug nilotinib. "Given the response of the leukemia to treatment with nilotinib, it was continued, and the patient's hair remained brown," they wrote.

Westerweel said nilotinib may have caused changes to the man's hair as a result of simulating melanocytes, which are the cells that produce the melanin pigment. He said the drug is currently being investigated by dermatological research groups for this purpose.

"Our patient case is the first 'human' proof for this phenomenon using nilotinib ... [But] I must add that I am skeptical to use nilotinib for the treatment of hypopigmentation disorders or age-related hypopigmentation as there are considerable other potential side effects, including an increased risk of cardiovascular disease."