his cancer gets worse, he develops an Irish accent overnight

A 50-year-old man presents to Duke University Hospital in North Carolina with a surprising symptom: he began speaking with a sharp Irish accent overnight, even though neither he nor his family are of Irish origin. Although his case may make one smile, it is in reality very serious. The patient has metastasized prostate cancer and the fact that he suddenly speaks with a foreign accent could be a sign that his disease is getting worse. Doctors performed neurological examinations and an MRI of his brain at the time of his hospitalization, without any abnormalities being observed.

On the other hand, his prostate cancer seems to be getting worse, a biopsy indicates that it is transforming into neuroendocrine cancer of the prostateprostatea rare (only 2% of prostate cancers) and very aggressive form of the disease whose prognosisprognosis vital is dark. Despite chemotherapy, the cancer cells eventually invaded his brain and caused fatal damage. The patient died as a result of ascending paralysis.

When the brain loses its Latin

THE syndromesyndrome Foreign accent is a rare acquired speech disorder in which the affected person begins speaking with a foreign accent overnight. The vast majority of cases appear after a stroke or accidentaccident severe. For example, a young French-speaking Belgian woman began speaking with a Flemish accent six months after a road accident. This disorder is the consequence of lesions in the brain, located mainly in the premotor and motor areas of the frontal lobefrontal lobebut other regions may also be involved.

Since the first case described, a Parisian who contracted an Alsatian accent in 1907, only around a hundred patients are known to have developed foreign accent syndrome. Our patient’s case is even more remarkable as foreign accent syndromes linked to cancer are extremely rare. For the doctors who treated him, this could be a warning sign that cancer is attacking the brain and causing neurological damage.