How cancer can make you speak with an Irish accent: doctors share one American’s bizarre case – so hear for yourself how his voice dramatically changed…

A man with cancer woke up to discover he suddenly had an Irish accent – even though he had never been to the country.

The American battled advanced prostate cancer for nearly two years before seeking advice about his “uncontrollable brogue”.

Doctors diagnosed the man in his 50s with an extremely rare foreign accent syndrome (FAS).

This means he is only one of a handful of people who 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 — believe his cancer was to blame. He later died.

The man, in his 50s, battled advanced prostate cancer for nearly two years before seeking advice about his “uncontrollable accent”. Pictured above: MRI scans of the man’s brain released by doctors at Duke University Health System. Scans A are T2-weighted images, while scans B are smooth attenuated inversion recovery images

The Duke University Health System team stated its case in the British Medical Journal case reports, saying they believed 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 it causes problems with muscle movement or coordination, but it can also affect thinking and memory.

The man, who has not been identified, was being treated at “an outside facility” for prostate cancer that had spread throughout his body.

In the course of 20 months he received Androgen deprivation therapy – hormone therapy used to suppress or block the production or action of male hormones, and radiation therapy.

Worried about his sudden change, the man admitted he had never been to Ireland and had never spoken with an Irish accent before.

However, he told medics he had Irish family and friends and lived briefly in England in his 20s.

Doctors said his new accent was “uncontrollable, present in all environments and gradually becoming more stubborn.”

Before his language change, he also had no known head trauma and suffered from no psychiatric illness.

Although he lost weight unintentionally, he reported no further symptoms.

The results of an MRI scan of the brain also showed no abnormalities, ruling out the usual causes of foreign accent syndrome.

However, a CT scan of his 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”.

Three months later, he was referred to the Duke Cancer Institute for further treatment due to his progressive prostate cancer.

At the time, the man still spoke with an “Irish Brogue” accent, medical professionals noted.

But his cancer progressed to neuroendocrine prostate cancer (NEPC), a deadly variant of prostate cancer.

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According to the doctors, there are many known cases of PNDs appearing as symptoms of patients with NEPC.

Prostate cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in the UK. One in eight men will be diagnosed with the disease during their lifetime, charities say.

However, the current outlook for patients with advanced prostate cancer is poor and few treatment options are available.

Around 12,000 men die from the disease each year in the UK – 33 a day – with almost 35,000 deaths a year in the US.

Medical specialists wrote that the man was transferred to hospice soon after because of his “rapid clinical deterioration” as his cancer progressed despite chemotherapy.

He died “shortly after,” they noted.

“His Irish brogue accent continued until his death,” they wrote in the BMJ publication.

Foreign accent syndrome can also occur after brain trauma, a brain hemorrhage or a brain tumor.

Since its discovery in 1907, only about 150 cases have been documented worldwide.

This 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. It could be a language they haven’t spoken in years.