Taxotere is a chemotherapy drug produced by French company, Sanofi-Aventis, and is used to help prevent cancer cells from growing and dividing. Taxotere has been used to treat a number of different cancers, but it is most widely associated with the treatment of breast cancer.
Like any pharmaceutical drug or treatment there are a number of potential side effects associated with the use of Taxotere, including bone, muscle, and joint pain, constipation, fatigue, nausea, numbness in fingers and toes, and more. There are also potentially serious side effects, including neutropenic enterocolitis, which is an inflammation at the head of the large intestine. This condition is rare, but it is often fatal.
Taxotere has come under the microscope recently due to the possibility of permanent hair loss, also known as alopecia. While hair loss is normally associated with chemotherapy treatment, this hair loss is normally temporary and hair begins to grow back within three to six months of stopping chemotherapy. With the use of Taxotere, however, approximately 10-15% of women have found their hair loss to be permanent. This hair loss can result in complete baldness of the scalp, body hair loss, or the complete loss of hair on both the body and scalp. While hair loss itself is not a serious or dangerous condition, it is an emotionally devastating side effect for many women.
Estimates have shown that up to 75 percent of women who were given Taxotere to treat their breast cancer were never warned about the risk of permanent hair loss. In many instances, doctors themselves were not aware of the risks either, despite the fact that Sanofi-Aventis may have been aware of the increased risk of permanent hair loss as early as the 1990s. The drug manufacturer has been accused of trying to deliberately downplay or conceal the risks of permanent hair loss and offering incentives to doctors who prescribe the drug rather than a lower cost alternative, which may have been just as effective and posed no risk of permanent hair loss.
Sanofi-Aventis warned European health officials about the increased risk of hair loss in 2005, while patients in the U.S. were kept in the dark until 2015, when the FDA finally required them to warn patients of the risk.
Thousands of women were prescribed this drug must now live with the lifelong consequences and pain and suffering associated with permanent hair loss.
After overcoming a hard-fought battle with cancer, it can be traumatic to learn that the drug you relied on to get better has now resulted in permanent hair loss, especially when those risks were carefully hidden from the public by a multi-billion-dollar pharmaceutical company.
If you used Taxotere during your chemotherapy treatment and have suffered permanent hair loss as a result, then you may be entitled to compensation due to the deceptive tactics of Sanofi-Aventis.
If you’ve been negatively impacted by Taxotere, then it is important that you reach out to the experienced medical malpractice attorneys at Fears Nachawati for a free, no obligation legal consultation to discuss the specifics of your Taxotere case. Please call (866) 705-7584, or visit the offices of Fears Nachawati located throughout the great state of Texas, including in Houston, Dallas, Austin, Fort Worth, and San Antonio.