Authored By:
Coureau G, Bouvier G, Lebailly P, Fabbro-Peray P, Gruber A, Leffondre K, Guillamo JS, Loiseau H, Mathoulin-Pelissier S, Salamon R, Baldi IThis case-control study investigated the association between mobile phone use and brain tumours in adults. The study compared mobile phone use between 447 cases of brain tumour (253 glioma and 194 meningioma) that were diagnosed between 2004-2006 and 892 matched controls. There was no statistically significant association between regular phone use and brain tumour. However, the authors found statistically significant positive associations for heavy use, when considering life-long cumulative call duration of more than 896 hours (odds ratio, OR=2.89; 95% confidence interval, CI 1.41 to 5.93 for glioma and OR=2.57; 95% CI 1.02 to 6.44 for meningioma), and when considering more than 18,360 number of calls for glioma (OR=2.10; 95% CI 1.03 to 4.31). The authors conclude that these results support other findings concerning a possible association between heavy mobile phone use and brain tumours.
Published In:
Occup Environ Med 2014: in pressThe INTERPHONE project, which is coordinated by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), is a multi-national series of case-control studies (from 13 different countries including Australia) testing whether using mobile phones is associated with an increased risk of various cancers in the head and neck. The INTERPHONE studies were conducted using the same methods to enable the data to be pooled for analysis.
A pooled analysis of the INTERPHONE studies for malignant brain tumours (glioma and meningioma) showed no overall association (INTERPHONE Study Group, 2010 (PDF 187kb). There were suggestions of an association (most pronounced for glioma) in the group representing individuals with the highest cumulative call time. The authors note that limitations of the methodology prevent conclusions of causality being drawn from these observations.
In May 2011 IARC assessed the possible carcinogenicity of radiofrequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMF). Based on positive associations found in INTERPHONE and some other epidemiological studies between glioma and acoustic neuroma and exposure to RF-EMF from wireless phones (mobile and cordless phones) IARC has classified RF EMF as “possibly carcinogenic to humans” (also known as Group 2B carcinogen) (see June 2011 report). The classification by IARC does not provide estimates of what risk of cancer might by posed by any given level of exposure to RF fields. An assessment of this and other possible health effects is currently being conducted by the World Health Organization.
