Cancer, fingerprints and the perfect crime

You are months in the planning to commit that perfect crime of robbing your neighborhood bank; but when you do, that perfect caper was not so perfect as you left your fingerprints on the bank vault. As you sit in your federal prison cell after being convicted of bank robbery and sentenced to 10 years, you begin to plan your next perfect crime, a crime without fingerprints.

The options for removing your fingerprints are too numerous to mention. One way of removing your fingerprints is placing your fingers into pineapple juice. The proteolytic enzymatic pineapple juice can digest off your fingerprint over time. Pineapple juice is an excellent choice as you do not need to be concerned about discarding hazardous waste, as you can just drink the leftover pineapple juice. Pineapple juice is a good source of potassium. You could also use any household acid, like bleach. If you have a steady hand and excellent eyesight, a surgical scalpel or Exacto knife would do fine in cutting off your fingerprints. You probably should also pick up from the pharmacy a good amount of gauze, Band-aids, and hydrogen peroxide just in case you slip and cut your finger off (think Yakuza). You might also purchase a mop from the local 99 Cents store to mop up your blood before your kid comes home from school.

One of the best ways of removing your fingerprint is to visit a plastic surgeon, probably one that advertises on highway billboards. They may tend to ask few questions and are more interested in cash flow and growing the gross national product (GNP for those readers who are economists). Of course if you have so much money that you can afford a plastic surgeon, you may not need to rob a bank. Just invest your money in the stock market and "you will soon be rich" as the sales pitch goes.

With luck tragedy may come your way. During your intake at the federal prison you are fingerprinted and required to take a physical exam. The prison physician, a kindly old gentleman, orders a colonoscopy (you know, this is where you face east and they come in with a probe from the west) as you are over 50 years old. After a couple weeks you get the results. You have colorectal cancer. Now what?

The doctor starts you on an oral regiment of Xeloda or capecitabine that is marketed by Roche. There will be no use of needles with this prisoner. A generic version of this drug has been available since 2003, so you do not have to worry about an EpiPen-type price increase with this drug. Cancerous tumors are characterized by uncontrolled cell division that lack "contact inhibition" which inhibits normal cells from unnatural dividing. Chemotherapy drugs that affect cells only when they are dividing are called "cell-cycle specific." Unfortunately, cell-cycle drugs are unable to distinguish between the cancerous cells and the normal cells. As a result, when you are on this drug you suffer from hair loss among other more serious side effects.

Anyway, back to the fingerprint issue. As you return to your prison cell, you do more than contemplate your navel as mortality becomes a daily worry. You pace around your small cell and rub your hands in distress. Something seems wrong as there is a certain smoothness to your hands. Maybe it is that body lotion that big guy down the cellblock has been trying to get you to use. Now what, as you inspect your hands for HFS or hand-foot syndrome, a cutaneous condition of red palms and blisters. It has been almost eight weeks since you have been taking Xeloda, and a curious thing has occurred. There is a severe quality loss of your fingerprint. That's right! You have lost your fingerprints!

In a research letter published Aug. 25 in JAMA Oncology, Dutch physicians warn that patients on capecitabine, a commonly used chemotherapy agent, can lose their fingerprints. "Physicians should be aware of this possible consequence of capecitabine treatment, and capecitabine-treated patients need to be informed about this side effect at the start of their treatment" advised senior author Ron Mathijssen, MD, Ph.D. of Erasmus MC Cancer Institute, Rotterdam. International travelers should also be warned as fingerprint verifications are performed at many immigration and custom offices.

In the end, the felon recovers and lives a long and prosperous life. As he is released from federal prison, a stern prison official warns him to live a life that is straight and narrow. He also tells him to wear gloves next time. Once the patient is off capecitabine, fingerprints reappear within two to three weeks.