A study, supported by the European Commission Fifth Framework Program - Quality of life and management of living resources, has found no link between use of cell phones and the risk of developing a brain tumor.

Researchers, led by C. Johansen, Institute of Cancer Epidemiology, Danish Cancer Society, in Copenhagen, evaluated a possible association of glioma or meningioma with use of cellular telephones.

The authors ascertained all incident cases of glioma and meningioma diagnosed in Denmark between September 2000 and August 2002.
They enrolled 252 persons with glioma and 175 persons with meningioma aged 20 to 69.

The Danish study questioned 427 people with brain tumors and 822 people without brain tumors about their cell phone use.

For 27 people with brain tumors and 47 people without brain tumors, researchers obtained phone records from cell phone companies to document the amount and length of calls.

The study found no increased risk for brain tumors related to cell phone use, frequency of use, or number of years of use.

Few people reported regular cell phone use for 10 years or more.

“ We won’t be able to make any firm conclusions until we can confirm these results with studies with more long-term and heavy cell phone users, ” Johansen said.

A Swedish study, published in Epidemiology in 2004 , found that using a cell phone for ten or more years doubles the risk of getting a type of benign head tumour, acoustic neuroma.

The researchers studied 148 acoustic neuroma patients and 604 healthy controls. 14 of the neuroma patients had regularly used cell phone for over ten years, compared with 29 of the controls.

The overall odds ratio for acoustic neuroma associated with regular cell phone use was 1.0.
Ten years after the start of cell phone use the estimates relative risk increased to 1.9; when restricting to tumors on the same side of the head as the phone was normally used, the relative risk was 3.9.

Source: Neurology, 2005


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