Fingerprints (Photo : Reuters/Mariana Bazo)
A breast cancer patient in Mexico has lost her fingerprints, maybe forever. The 65-year-old woman was diagnosed with hand-foot syndrome (HFS) triggered by her chemotherapy treatments after being denied a transaction that required her fingerprints, Daily Mail Online reported.
According to a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, the woman was in the advanced stage of breast cancer, which has spread to her lungs. The woman had been undergoing chemotherapy treatments for breast cancer for three months. The chemotherapy treatments caused her to develop hand-foot syndrome.
The study said that the hand-foot syndrome is a side effect of some chemotherapeutic agents. The side effect is characterized by pain on the soles of the feet and palms of the hands, swelling and redness.
Doctors in Mexico investigated her case and found that a common cancer drug, capecitabine, was to blame. The 65-year-old developed grade 1 of HFS after her first chemotherapy cycle. Grade 1 was defined as minimal skin changes and dermatitis without pain. Doctors successfully treated it with topical agents.
However, the woman's skin symptoms became worse after her third chemotherapy cycle. Her symptoms started interfering with her daily activities. Therefore, the patient's doctors decreased some of the cancer treatments because the tumors in her lungs had reduced.
The study's authors, Dr. Enrique Soto-Perez-de-Celis and Dr. Yanin Chavarri-Guerra, said that the woman had no toxic effects, but the fingerprints of her fingers and thumb were erased.
HFS may take place within days or one year after initiation of therapy, and it normally resolves within one or two weeks after treatment gets over. The symptoms of HFS are generally not permanent.
Dr. Stephanie Bernik, Lenox Hill Hospital's Chief of Surgical Oncology, said that loss of fingerprints is an uncommon complication of HFS. She further said that skin peeling and sloughing with associated swelling is not so rare, but the occurrence to the extent that fingerprints may vanish is very surprising. Generally the symptoms are reversible but that was not the case with this breast cancer patient.
Bernik added that patients and health care workers need to be aware of this possible uncommon result of chemotherapy, Physicians News reported.
