100 people with rare cancers who attended same NJ high school demand answers

A single New Jersey man has uncovered a medical mystery apparently linking 100 people diagnosed with rare cancers to a Woodbridge high school.

In 1999, when he was just 27, Al Lupiano was diagnosed with a “very rare” and abnormally large brain tumor for someone his age called Acoustic Neuroma (AN). Last summer, Lupiano’s wife and now-deceased sister were diagnosed with rare forms of brain cancer on the same day. His wife was similarly diagnosed with an abnormally large AN tumor, and his sister was diagnosed with Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM), which has an incident rate of 30 out of every 1 million people, Lupiano explained in a Facebook post that he has been updating since March 7.

“Their neurologist, who has been recognized as a global leader in neurosurgery by the World Federation of Neurological Societies, has treated and been involved with tens of thousands of brain tumors in his career. It is his belief my wife and I may be the first documented case of spouses having an AN, both roughly the same size and on the same side of the head…according to him, the odds are maybe 1 in a BILLION,” Lupiano said.

“To say he was concerned when he discovered all three of us grew up in the same neighborhood is an understatement. Why? There is one well documented cause of brain tumors – radiation exposure,” he continued.

Lupiano eventually arrived at a single linking factor between himself, his wife and his sister: they each attended Colonia High School in Woodbridge in the 1990s. But Lupiano was not initially sure that the high school was a link to the similar yet rare brain cancer cases until he made a request on Facebook for others who attended Colonia to reach out to him personally.- READ MORE