Review date
March 2024
Article publication date
March 2024
Summary
This prospective cohort study on Mobile Phones and Health (COSMOS), examined association between long-term mobile phone use and risk of brain tumours. The study recruited 264,574 adult participants in Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Sweden and the UK during 2007–2012. Data on brain tumour (glioma, meningioma or acoustic neuroma) occurrence in the participants was obtained through cohort linkage to respective national cancer registries. Data on the participants’ mobile phone use (number of years since start of regular mobile phone use or cumulative hours of mobile phone call-time) were collected from the participants at baseline (i.e., at the beginning of the study). A total of 149 participants were diagnosed with glioma, 89 with meningioma, and 29 with acoustic neuroma during follow-up (median follow-up of 7.1 years). The risk estimate per 100 cumulative hours of mobile phone call-time was 1.00 (95% CI: 0.98–1.02) for glioma, 1.01 (95% CI: 0.96–1.06) for meningioma, and 1.02 (95% CI: 0.99–1.06) for acoustic neuroma. Over 15 years of mobile phone use was not associated with an increased tumour risk. These results showed that the cumulative amount of mobile phone use is not associated with the risk of developing glioma, meningioma, or acoustic neuroma.
Published in
Environmental International
Link to
Mobile phone use and brain tumour risk – COSMOS, a prospective cohort study
ARPANSA commentary
The conclusion of the study demonstrate that long-term mobile phone use is not associated with the risk of developing glioma, meningioma, or acoustic neuroma. The overall conclusion of this study is consistent with the findings of previous prospective cohort studies (Schuz et al., 2022; Schuz et al., 2011; Frei et al., 2011), the Interphone case-control study (Interphone Study Group, 2010), a recent review by the US Food and Drug Administration on RF-EMF and Cancer, and studies investigating trends in brain tumour incidence rates over time (Elwood et al., 2022; Deltour et al., 2022), including an Australia study (Karipidis et al., 2018).
The current study has a major strength over previous studies that it is the largest multinational prospective cohort study. The study adopted a robust approach for collecting detailed data on the participants’ mobile phone usage to overcome the limitation of recall bias, exposure measurement error and exposure misclassification to a large extent, which otherwise would have biased the risk estimates. Notable limitations of the study include the collection of mobile phone use data only at baseline, and inclusion of relatively small numbers of meningioma and acoustic neuroma cases, which limits the statistical power of the study.
Based on the current scientific evidence, and consistent with the findings of this study, it is the assessment of ARPANSA that there is no substantiated evidence that mobile phone use (resulting in RF-EMF exposures at levels below the limits set in the ARPANSA Safety Standard) cause any adverse health effects, including brain tumours in humans populations. The World Health Organization is currently assessing available evidence on potential human health effects (including brain tumours) of radiofrequency electromagnetic field (RF EMF) exposure, including that associated with mobile phone use. The Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA) is supporting this process.
