Loss of fingerprints a cancer drug side-effect

LONDON: When a cancer patient from Singapore traveled to the United States last year, he discovered an unusual side effect of his medication: missing fingerprints.

The 62-year-old man was taking capecitabine, or Xeloda, to treat head and neck cancer. Upon arriving in the US, immigration officials asked him for his fingerprints. But the drug had caused so much redness and peeling to his fingers that the patient, identified only as Mr S, had none.

Customs officials held Mr . for four hours before deciding he was not a security threat, according to the case published yesterday in a letter to the Annals of Oncology journal.