If you watch television then you’ve seen a drug commercial with a list of side effects. One commonly used cancer treatment drug, capecitabine, has a side effect which can get you into trouble at the airport – capecitabine can erase finger prints!
Capecitabine is prescribed regularly to prevent cancer from returning and is known to cause inflammation and blistering of the palms and soles of the feet. Using it a lot can cause swelling and blistering and leave patients without finger prints. Sometimes the swelling isn’t pronounced enough to affect patients and cause doctors to remove capecitabine from their drug regimens.
This is exactly what happened to one patient chronicled by the BBC. This patient was travelling to the United States where he was held by immigration officials for four hours. Their reasoning? The man’s finger prints had vanished!!!
http://www.handresearch.com/news/cancer-patient-no-fingerprints-hand-foot-syndrome.htm
That is interesting indeed. How painful would the swelling be? My guess is that if it was large enough to stretch the skin to that point (is it possible?) it would hurt such an innervated area to the point of avoiding use.
ReplyDeleteI am wondering why the leakage only occurs in the smaller capillaries of the hands and feet. I guess I am wondering if leakage could occur elsewhere in the body causing other inflammatory processes.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete