Objective Quantification of Chemotherapy-Induced Madarosis: A Pilot Study of an Automated Computer Vision Pipeline for Eyebrow Density Assessment

This pilot study introduces an automated computer vision pipeline for objectively quantifying eyebrow density changes in patients undergoing chemotherapy, specifically targeting chemotherapy-induced madarosis. The method, which includes facial landmark detection and deep learning-based hair segmentation, was tested on breast cancer patients receiving anthracycline and taxane-based chemotherapy with localized cryotherapy. The system demonstrated high precision, with intra-session standard deviations below 12%, effectively tracking individual changes in eyebrow density over time. The study concludes that this tool offers a robust, operator-independent metric for monitoring madarosis, potentially serving as a reliable primary endpoint for future clinical trials after validation in larger cohorts.