View PDF<\/a><\/p>\nThe report does not determine what caused individual patients\u2019 cancers.<\/p>\n
Questions beyond glioblastoma<\/p>\n
Ankiel said she was not surprised by the state\u2019s conclusion.<\/p>\n
Earlier this month, she drove I-Team reporter Katie Bente through Fort Pierce neighborhoods, pointing out homes where she said brain tumor patients had lived \u2014 in some cases, only doors apart.<\/p>\n
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For Stephanie Ankiel, one stop on the drive through Fort Pierce brings the questions back to her own family. She pointed to her late husband\u2019s childhood home, then another home a few houses away where she said a resident was diagnosed in 2025 with the same type of brain tumor. (WPEC)<\/p>\n
Her questions are also personal. Ankiel\u2019s husband, Mark Cunningham, was initially diagnosed with oligodendroglioma in 2012. Ankiel said his cancer was later diagnosed as glioblastoma. He died in 2019 at 35.<\/p>\n
Now, Ankiel is helping another patient with the same initial diagnosis. Amber Lee, 37, is living with oligodendroglioma, a brain tumor that is distinct from glioblastoma.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first thing I remember thinking of when they told me I had cancer was, I have a daughter,\u201d Lee said. \u201cI have a toddler at home. I\u2019m a single mom.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lee also grew up in the same Fort Pierce neighborhood as Ankiel\u2019s husband.<\/p>\n
\u201cI realized that a lot of those people were family members of people that I grew up with, people that my family, my parents grew up with,\u201d Lee said.<\/p>\n
The shared diagnosis and neighborhood history do not establish a common cause or prove a cancer cluster. But Ankiel believes the geographic patterns deserve a closer examination.<\/p>\n
The state analyzed entire ZIP codes, not individual streets.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe the ZIP codes are a little bit too broad,\u201d Ankiel said. \u201cLet\u2019s actually, let\u2019s look at some of the streets.\u201d<\/p>\n
Why oligodendroglioma was not counted<\/p>\n
The updated review focuses specifically on glioblastoma.<\/p>\n
It excludes oligodendroglioma \u2014 the tumor Lee is living with and the tumor Ankiel said her husband was initially diagnosed with.<\/p>\n
The report shows two tumor classification codes included in the state\u2019s 2019 analysis \u2014 9450 and 9451 \u2014 were excluded from the new review.<\/p>\n
The department said medical classifications have evolved and those oligodendroglioma codes are no longer included in the current glioblastoma definition.<\/p>\n
The I-Team previously asked health officials how their analysis handles patients whose diagnoses change and whether other brain cancers were examined separately.<\/p>\n
The report does not explain how a case initially classified as oligodendroglioma and later diagnosed as glioblastoma would be counted.<\/p>\n
Recent diagnoses fall outside the review<\/p>\n
The assessment does not include diagnoses from 2024 through 2026. An accompanying FAQ says 2023 was the latest finalized cancer registry year available.<\/p>\n
Officials said the reporting delay allows records to be checked for completeness and accuracy.<\/p>\n
Lee\u2019s diagnosis falls outside the period examined. Her tumor also would not be included in the glioblastoma analysis because it is classified as oligodendroglioma.<\/p>\n
Lee said she wants officials to continue studying brain tumor diagnoses in the area. She is especially concerned about her younger sister, who grew up in the same home.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to know if my sister can get tested somehow before it\u2019s too late for her,\u201d Lee said.<\/p>\n
The review also does not capture more recent glioblastoma diagnoses previously covered by the I-Team.<\/p>\n
Port St. Lucie resident Laura Cooper told CBS12 News in June that she was diagnosed with glioblastoma in November 2025, years after losing her best friend to the disease. At the time of the interview, she was undergoing treatment and participating in a clinical trial.<\/p>\n
Street-level limitations<\/p>\n
The report acknowledges limitations in the Florida Cancer Data System. The registry generally records a patient\u2019s address at the time of diagnosis. It does not contain a complete residential history or detailed information about possible environmental exposures.<\/p>\n
That means a patient\u2019s address at diagnosis may not reflect where that person lived years earlier or where a potentially relevant exposure occurred.<\/p>\n
The report also does not analyze whether cases are concentrated on individual streets or within smaller sections of the ZIP codes examined.<\/p>\n
Environmental records reviewed<\/p>\n
Health officials reviewed public drinking-water records, available private-well data and radiation monitoring around the St. Lucie nuclear power plant.<\/p>\n
The department reported that its water review did not identify contamination involving chemicals linked by the Environmental Protection Agency to glioblastoma or other brain-related health concerns. It also reported no increase in monitored environmental radiation levels around the plant.<\/p>\n
The documents describe reviews of existing records and monitoring data. They do not specify whether new environmental samples were collected specifically for this assessment.<\/p>\n
In Thursday\u2019s email, Sperber highlighted the department\u2019s conclusion that no environmental hazard in the Treasure Coast region has been shown to cause glioblastoma.<\/p>\n
The scientific journal article provided by the department is a broader review of existing research into environmental hazards and brain tumors. It is not a study of Treasure Coast patients, neighborhoods or environmental conditions.<\/p>\n
The department said it will continue monitoring cancer incidence and working with state and local partners.<\/p>\n
Ankiel said she is not trying to work against health officials and wants to work with them. But for the families she has met, the state\u2019s statistical conclusion does not resolve the questions raised by patients living in the same neighborhoods \u2014 or sometimes only a few houses apart.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. LUCIE COUNTY, Fla. (CBS12) \u2014 Florida health officials released an updated Treasure Coast brain cancer review Thursday,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":443133,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[171,173,172],"class_list":["post-443132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-port-st-lucie","tag-port-st-lucie","tag-port-st-lucie-headlines","tag-port-st-lucie-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=443132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443132\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/443133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=443132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=443132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=443132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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