The patient's gaze became Irish.
Dublin (Photo: ShutterStock)
An American man developed Foreign Accent Syndrome as a rare and possibly unique manifestation of his prostate cancer, his doctors described in a case report published in BMJ Case Reports.
The case describes how a man, in his 50s, was diagnosed with prostate cancer 20 months before His speech problems. At this point, he reported marked changes in his normal speech patterns, in that he began to speak with an Irish accent
. -20 years old," the team wrote about the man, who lives in California. "His accent was uncontrollable and gradually became permanent."
The patient told the doctors that he did not suffer from head trauma, nor any other symptoms beyond unintentional weight loss.
An MRI of his brain came back normal, but a CT scan of his pelvis and abdomen revealed that his prostate cancer was progressing.
In addition to being diagnosed with the foreign accent syndrome, he was referred to a neurologist for further investigation.
The foreign accent syndrome is a rare speech disorder that causes a sudden change in the form of the expression, its timing, intonation, and the position of the tongue.
All these make it seem as if the person is speaking with a "foreign" accent.
The syndrome is often caused after brain damage caused as a secondary phenomenon to a stroke or traumatic brain injury.
Other factors have also been reported in connection with the rare syndrome and they also include multiple sclerosis and various psychiatric disorders.
Sometimes it may develop without the cause being clearly identified.
The syndrome is extremely rare, with only about 100 people in the world diagnosed with the strange condition.
The accent remains
Three months later, after receiving cancer treatment, the patient still spoke with an Irish accent.
In addition to this, he developed stomach and leg pains.
When he underwent further tests, his doctors discovered that the cancer had spread to his liver and bones and had metastasized to his brain.
The team believes that his foreign accent syndrome was caused by paraneoplastic syndrome, which is a manifestation or symptom resulting from the presence of cancer in the body, but not from the local presence of cancer cells.
According to them, the progression of the syndrome went in line with the progression of the cancer.
The team believes this is the first case reported in the medical literature of foreign accent syndrome as a result of prostate cancer, although two others have been reported in patients with other malignancies.
The team hopes the case highlights the need for more literature on FAS and paraneoplastic syndromes in cancer patients, to better understand the relationship between the rare syndromes.
As for the patient, the man died in palliative care, with staff noting that "his Irish accent was preserved until his death."
health
news
Tags
cancer
prostate cancer
language