Alopecia, or loss of hair, is felt by many cancer patients to be the most traumatic side effect of chemotherapy. The presence of hair contributes substantially to each person's overall appearance or body image. If a person's hair is suddenly taken away as a result of chemotherapeutic damage done to the hair follicles, then the resulting alopecia should alter the patient's body image. In order to assess perceptions of alteration in body image, a body image scale was administered to 40 cancer patients receiving chemotherapy. Patients with alopecia were expected to score higher, thus indicating lowered body image than patients without alopecia. The findings of this study showed a statistically significant difference in the scores on the body image scale between patients with alopecia and patients without alopecia.