Group of Auburn alumni develop eye melanoma; researchers perplexed

PanARMENIAN.Net - Uveal melanoma is a rare type of cancer that affects several parts of the eye. Only about five people out of every million are diagnosed with the condition, making it extremely rare, Ledger-Enquirer reports.

So why have a small group of people who attended Auburn University in the 1980s and ’90s developed the disease at roughly the same time?

Nobody is sure —but researchers are struggling to find out.

“This is a rare disease for which there isn’t an exact known cause,” Dr. Marlana Orloff, an oncologist at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia, told AL.com. “No one’s really uncovered anything that causes it yet.”

The disease usually begins as what looks like a sort of freckle in the eye. But it’s actually a small tumor, which can lead to poor vision, sensations of lights and flashes, and, possibly, serious damage that can lead to the removal of the eye or the spread of the cancer throughout the body, according to the Mayo Clinic.

If the cancer does spread, the prognosis isn’t good – only about 15 percent of people survive another five years, according to the American Cancer Society.

This month, three women, all Auburn grads, who suffer from the disease created a Facebook page called “Auburn Ocular Melanoma Cluster.” It now has more than 700 “likes.”

“We are group of people joined together through our courage, faith, and friendship,” the group’s description reads. “We are connected by an unexpected diagnosis ... Most of us (that we know of) went to Auburn between 1983 and 2001. We all have a love for Auburn University that to some is unexplainable.”

Since then, the cancer has been found in other places throughout her body — but she’s still alive, more than a decade later.

For now, there’s no clear answer for what may have caused the former students to develop the disease, if there was a detectable cause at all. But the affected former students are hopeful that the conference the researchers held in February will lead to some new answers.