Eye cancer diagnosed in former Auburn University students has doctors scratching their heads and trying to learn more about the rare ocular melanoma.
Eighteen people in Auburn, Alabama, and Huntersville, North Carolina, have been diagnosed with the disease, and some of them are friends and former students of Auburn University, CBS News reported.
Juleigh Green, Allison Allred, and Ashley McCrary, all college friends from Auburn, were diagnosed with the disease years apart, and another Auburn grad, Lori Lee, also has the disease.
"Most people don't know anyone with this disease," said Dr. Marlana Orloff, an oncologist at the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center (SKCC) at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, according to CBS News. "We said, 'OK, these girls were in this location, they were all definitively diagnosed with this very rare cancer – what's going on?'"
There is no known cure for the disease, which has led to some patients to have an eye removed and others have seen it metastasize to other body parts. It normally affects six out of 1 million people, CBS News reported.
A Facebook page was set up to try to learn more about the disease among people who attended Auburn University between 1983 and 2001.
"We are determined to work together to find a cure and a way to prevent others from having to fight this terrible disease," the Facebook page reads.
In North Carolina, researchers revealed earlier this month that they were unable to find any common links that could be attributed to the cancer, WCNC-TV reported.
But residents there have not given up on trying to understand what is causing the disease.
"This is not the end. This is the beginning," Sue Colbert, whose daughter died of ocular melanoma four years ago at age 28, told the station.
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