Isabelle Wilson-
A cancer patient in the US developed what researchers have described as an “uncontrollable Irish accent” during treatment, despite never having been to Ireland in Britain nor having immediate relatives from the country, in a bizarre outcome making the news rounds today.
Cases of foreign accent syndrome (FAS) are more common in patients following strokes or head trauma, or who have psychiatric disorders, according to the experts from North Carolina’s Duke University and the Carolina Urologic Research Center of South Carolina.
The hospital only found two similar cases to the “brogue” that evolved in the unnamed US patient, who was a man in his 50s with metastatic hormone-sensitive prostate cancer. Both other cases occurred in women cancer patients in their 50s and 60s between 2009 and 2011.
“To our knowledge, this is the first case of FAS described in a patient with prostate cancer and the third described in a patient with malignancy,” said the report, published in the British Medical Journal.
Researchers said he maintained the Irish accent through about 20 months of treatment, and a gradual onset of paralysis, until his death.
Although the man had lived in England in his 20s, and had friends and more distant family members from Ireland, he had never visited Ireland, nor previously spoken in an Irish accent.
“He had no neurological examination abnormalities, psychiatric history or MRI of the brain abnormalities at symptom onset,” the report said.
“Despite chemotherapy, his neuroendocrine prostate cancer progressed resulting in multifocal brain metastases and a likely paraneoplastic ascending paralysis leading to his death.”
”His accent was uncontrollable, present in all settings and gradually became persistent,” the researchers say in their report, published in late January in BMJ Case Reports, a copy of which BMJ provided to CTVNews.ca.
The man also had no history of psychiatric disease, head trauma or any known psychosocial stressor before his speech change appeared, the report says.
As his condition worsened, the researchers say the man still kept his Irish accent up until his death months later.
The researchers believe the situation is a case of foreign accent syndrome (FAS), also referred to as pseudo-FAS and dysprosody, which they describe as a consistent change in speech that makes it seem as if a person has a foreign accent.
It can often occur due to stroke, although documented cases exist of FAS being associated with earlier head trauma and history of psychiatric disease, the researchers say.
The report points to paraneoplastic neurological disorder (PND) as the most likely cause of the patient’s FAS.
The authors suspect the paraneoplastic neurological disorder (PND), which develops in some cancer patients whose immune systems attack parts of the brain, spinal cord, nerves or muscles, was responsible.
“His accent was uncontrollable, present in all settings and gradually became persistent,” the report said.
Some who have developed FAS regain their original accent, either spontaneously or through intensive speech therapy, while for others the change is permanent.
The US report said the case of the patient with the Irish accent underscored a need for more research.
“This unusual presentation highlights the importance of additional literature on FAS and PNDs associated with prostate cancer to improve understanding of the links between these rare syndromes and clinical trajectory,” the report concluded.