A Matter of Excessive Hair Growth
March 2010
in “
Internal medicine journal
”
TLDR A 72-year-old man with sudden taste issues and hair growth was diagnosed with a severe stomach cancer and died within 5 months.
A 72-year-old man experienced sudden taste disturbance and excessive hair growth, leading to a diagnosis of metastatic gastric carcinoma. He had fine, pale hair growth over his body and significant weight loss. Despite normal blood tests, imaging showed extensive lymphadenopathy, and biopsies confirmed poorly differentiated adenocarcinoma. The patient refused chemotherapy and died within 5 months. This case highlighted acquired hypertrichosis lanuginosa (AHL), a rare paraneoplastic syndrome associated with internal malignancy and poor prognosis, characterized by lanugo-type hair growth in previously hairless areas.
