A rare form of the prostate Cancer caused a man in his fifties to suddenly speak with an accent that sounded remarkably like an Irish accent; a stark change that accompanied him for the rest of his life.
There are only two other reports of cancers that trigger foreign accent syndrome (FAS) in the medical literature. This is the first case specifically linked to prostate cancer.
FAS is an uncommon speech disorder that can cause a person to suddenly burst into a “foreign” accent for no known reason, changing pronunciation in a way that resembles, at least superficially, the rhythm of another dialect or language.
The syndrome is most commonly associated with stroke or traumatic brain injury. The most famous case for example, it is about a Norwegian woman from 1941 who suffered a head injury in the bombing of Oslo. A few months later, she began speaking with what appeared to be a German accent.
A more recent example made headlines just a few years ago a woman from Arizona literally woke up and talked like “Mary Poppins”. In her case, the cause was unclear.
Much rarer are cases that are definitely related to some type of tumors. In fact, only two other examples are given in the literature.
According to a case study published in 2008a woman in her 60s began speaking with a different, unspecified accent after her breast cancer spread to her brain.
In a similar casean Italian woman in her 50s with a brain tumor suddenly started speaking with a different rhythm and melody.
Despite the attention given to stories in which people suddenly develop specific foreign accents, most cases of FAS involve general changes in language production that cannot readily be attributed to a specific geographic region.
The US man’s recent case, diagnosed with prostate cancer, is a rare example of a voice change that closely resembles a recognizable accent. He was evidently not of Irish descent and had never been to Ireland. But just 20 months after being diagnosed with metastatic hormone-sensitive prostate cancer, he began speaking with a South Irish compulsion.
Contrary to previous case reports, this patient initially had no observable tumors in his brain, although some appeared as his disease progressed.
Given the timing, doctors suspect the patient’s FAS was the result of a rare condition paraneoplastic neurological disorder (PND). PND is caused when cancer outside of the brain triggers an immune response that can remotely affect the nervous system.
Despite chemotherapy and radiation, the patient’s cancer continued to progress, gradually crippling his body and, unfortunately, eventually ending his life. The man kept his Irish-sounding accent to the end.
“This unusual presentation underscores the importance of additional literature on FAS and PNDs in the prostate cancer context to improve understanding of the associations between these rare syndromes and clinical outcomes,” write the authors of the case study.
The study was published in BMJ case reports.
