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State to analyze data from Huntersville cancer cluster

HUNTERSVILLE, N.C. — There are new developments in the state investigation into a possible cancer cluster in Huntersville.
 
State cancer investigators will soon begin analyzing data gathered in one on one interviews with a dozen patients diagnosed with ocular melanoma.

IMAGES: Victims in Huntersville with eye cancer
 
OM is a rare eye cancer that strikes only five people in 1 million but last summer, Eyewitness News identified at least eight cases among people who either lived or worked in or near Huntersville.
 
Over the last month, epidemiologists have conducted intensive interviews with local eye cancer patients.
 
"Our entire school history, job history, family history, health history," said Vicki Kerecman, who was diagnosed with OM in 2011.
 
Kerecman was one of the first patients interviewed by Eyewitness News last summer.
 
Since then she's been vocal in calling for a state investigation into a possible common cause for the cancers. 
 
In January, Kerecman and nearly a dozen other eye cancer patients met with WSOC-TV to express their frustration at what they perceived as inaction by state health officials. 
 
Not long after that, North Carolina's head epidemiologist apologized saying the state should have reached out to Huntersville's eye cancer patients.
 
At that time, the state promised a thorough investigation. 
 
Last month at the state's request, the Mecklenburg County Health Department began contacting a dozen eye cancer patients.
 
Just this week, the county finished intensive interviews with those patients.
 
The data is now being turned over to the North Carolina Department Health and Human Services.
 
Cancer researchers will begin analyzing the information to any commonalities that may have been involved in their cancers. 
 
Results of that work are expected within a month.

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