A cancer-stricken man woke up to discover he suddenly had an Irish accent – despite never having been to the country.
The American had been battling advanced prostate cancer for nearly two years before seeking advice for his “uncontrollable brogue.”
Doctors diagnosed the man in his 50s with extremely rare foreign accent syndrome (FAS).
It means he’s only one of a handful of people to have ever experienced the speech disorder, which usually occurs as a complication of a stroke or head injury.
But North Carolina medics — who treated him and shared snippets of his voice before and after the bizarre change — think his cancer was to blame. He later died.
The American had been battling advanced prostate cancer for nearly two years before seeking advice for his “uncontrollable brogue.” Pictured, Classiebawn Castle, Mullaghmore, Sligo
The man in his 50s had been battling advanced prostate cancer for nearly two years before seeking advice for his “uncontrollable brogue.” Pictured above, MRI scans released by doctors at Duke University Health System of the man’s brain. Scans A are T2 weighted images, while scans B are smooth attenuated inversion recovery images
The Duke University Health System team presented its case in the British Medical Journal Case Reports and said they believe the man had developed a paraneoplastic neurological disorder (PND).
These are rare complications of cancer, caused by disease-fighting cells in the immune system mistakenly attacking the nervous system.
Usually this causes muscle movement or coordination problems, but it can also affect thinking and memory.
The man, who was not identified, was being treated at “an outside facility” for prostate cancer that had spread throughout his body.
In the course of 20 months he had received androgen deprivation therapy – a hormone therapy to suppress or block the production or action of male hormones, as well as radiotherapy.
Worried about his sudden change, the man revealed that he had never been to Ireland and had never spoken with an Irish accent before.
However, he told medics that he had Irish family and friends and had lived briefly in England in his twenties.
Doctors said his new accent was “uncontrollable, present in all environments and gradually becoming more persistent.”
Prior to his speech change, he also had no known head trauma and was not suffering from any psychiatric illness.
Although he lost weight unintentionally, he reported no other symptoms.
Results of an MRI scan of the brain also showed no abnormalities, ruling out the usual causes of foreign accent syndrome.
But a CT scan of the abdomen and pelvis revealed that his prostate cancer had spread further, with “a new cluster of lymph nodes in the right pelvis above the bladder.”
Because of his progressive prostate cancer, he was referred to the Duke Cancer Institute for further treatment three months later.
At the time, the man was still consistently speaking with the “Irish brogue” accent, medics noted.
But his cancer had progressed to neuroendocrine prostate cancer (NEPC), a deadly variant of prostate cancer.
According to the doctors, there are many known cases of PNDs presenting as symptoms of patients with NEPC.
In the UK, prostate cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer. One in eight men will be diagnosed with the disease in their lifetime, charities say.
However, the current outlook for patients with advanced prostate cancer is poor and few treatment options are available.
About 12,000 men die from the disease each year in the UK – 33 each day – with nearly 35,000 deaths per year in the US.
Medics wrote that the man was transferred to hospice soon after due to his “rapid clinical decline” as his cancer progressed despite chemotherapy.
He died “shortly afterwards,” they noted.
“His Irish brogue-like accent was preserved until his death,” they wrote in the BMJ publication.
Foreign Accent Syndrome can also occur after trauma to the brain, bleeding in the brain, or a brain tumor.
Since its discovery in 1907, only about 150 cases have been documented worldwide.
It is different from foreign language syndrome. The condition occurs when people suddenly forget to speak their native language and instead rely on a second language. This could be a language they haven’t spoken for years.
