A man with prostate cancer developed an uncontrollable Irish brogue accent despite never having one, according to US researchers.
The researchers from Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, and Carolina Urologic Research Center in South Carolina report that the patient, a male in his fifties, was diagnosed with metastatic hormone-sensitive prostate cancer.
Man With Prostate Cancer Develops Irish Accent
The patient’s speech changed 20 months after being diagnosed with cancer, according to the researchers.
The researchers write, His accent was uncontrollable, ubiquitous, and gradually became chronic in their late-January BMJ Case Reports article, a copy of which was provided to CTVNews.ca.
Although he briefly resided in England in his twenties and had Irish relatives and acquaintances, the patient had never been to Ireland or spoken with an Irish accent, according to the researchers.
According to the report, the individual had no history of a psychiatric condition, head trauma, or other known psychosocial stressor prior to the onset of his speech alteration.
Even as his illness deteriorated, the man maintained his Irish accent until he passed away many months later, according to the researchers.
The researchers believe this is a case of foreign accent syndrome (FAS), also known as pseudo-FAS and dysprosody, which they define as a continuous alteration in speech that gives the impression that a person speaks with a foreign accent.
FAS is frequently the result of a stroke, but there are recorded instances of it being linked to a history of head trauma and psychiatric illness, according to researchers.
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Patient’s FAS Caused By Paraneoplastic Neurological Disease
The Mayo Clinic in the United States defines paraneoplastic syndromes of the nervous system as a series of rare illnesses that arise in some cancer patients, specifically when the immune system’s cancer-fighting agents target the brain, spinal cord, peripheral nerves, or muscles.
As was the case with this patient, previous research has revealed a link between paraneoplastic syndromes and the advancement of prostate cancer, as stated in the BMJ study.
The individual also acquired paralysis in his legs and arms, which is suspicious of paraneoplastic disease, according to the experts.
The researchers discovered just two other similar cases in the scientific literature: one involving a lady in her 60s with breast cancer in 2009, and another involving a woman in her 50s with seizures in 2011.
In the report, it is said that this is the third instance of a cancer patient with FAS and the first incidence of FAS described in a patient with prostate cancer, to our knowledge.
The paper concludes, This unique presentation emphasizes the need for additional material on FAS and PNDs linked with prostate cancer to enhance our understanding of the relationships between these rare syndromes and clinical course.
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