LONOKE COUNTY, Ark. – In an update to a story we first brought you Thursday, the Arkansas Department of Health now plans to investigate a possible chronic disease cluster in the Lonoke County area. 

From left to right, Ray Lambert, Jeremy Guenther, and Scott Hubble grew up in the same rural community near Austin. 

They also all have brain tumors. They are concerned their childhood neighborhood may have played a part in their tumor diagnosis.

“There are a lot of people out here walking around with ticking time bombs in their brains,” said Guenther. 

Dr. Ali Krisht, a leading neurosurgeon and the director of CHI St. Vincent’s Arkansas Neuroscience Institute says tumors can be genetic or come from something else.  

“In terms of what causes brain tumors, there’s much more that we don’t know than we know,” Dr. Krisht said. “Having different individuals having been diagnosed with tumors who are coming from the same region? Yes, it makes you wonder if there is some kind of environmental factor.” 

The Arkansas Department of Health State Chronic Disease Director Dr. Appathurai Balamurugan says the state does have guidelines for investigating clusters of chronic diseases. 

They plan to look into what’s causing the health problems in rural Lonoke County. 

“To see what’s going on in the community and if there is truly an excess case of brain cancers, in this case, in that community,” said Dr. Balamurugan. 

The three men hope researchers find answers to their medical mystery.

The Health Department says went it’s contacted by an individual it looks into a possible cancer cluster. 

At this time, there aren’t any current cancer cluster investigations. The department does plan to look into what may be going on in Lonoke County.