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Cellular-telephone
use and brain tumors
Inskip PD, Tarone RE, Hatch EE, Wilcosky TC, Shapiro WR, Selker RG, Fine HA,
Black PM, Loeffler JS, Linet MS
Epidemiology and Biostatistics Program, Division of Cancer
Epidemiology and Genetics, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, MD, USA.inskippe@mail.nih.gov
Background.
Concern has arisen that the use of hand-held cellular telephones might cause
brain tumors.
If such a risk does exist, the matter would be of considerable public health
importance, given the rapid increase worldwide in the use of these
devices.
Methods.
We examined the use of cellular telephones in a case-control study of
intracranial tumors of the nervous system conducted between 1994 and 1998.
We enrolled 782 patients through hospitals in Phoenix, Arizona; Boston; and
Pittsburgh; 489 had histologically confirmed glioma, 197 had meningioma, and 96
had acoustic neuroma.
The 799 controls were patients admitted to the same hospitals as the patients
with brain tumors for a variety of nonmalignant conditions.
Results.
As compared with never, or very rarely, having used a cellular telephone, the
relative risks associated with a cumulative use of a cellular telephone for more
than 100 hours were
0.9 for glioma (95 percent confidence interval, 0.5 to 1.6),
0.7 for meningioma (95 percent confidence interval, 0.3 to 1.7),
1.4 for acoustic neuroma (95 percent confidence interval, 0.6 to 3.5), and
1.0 for all types of tumors combined (95 percent confidence interval, 0.6 to
1.5).
There was no evidence that the risks were higher among persons who used cellular
telephones for 60 or more minutes per day or regularly for five or more
years.
Tumors did not occur disproportionately often on the side of head on which the
telephone was typically used.
Conclusions.
These data do not support the hypothesis that the recent use of hand-held
cellular telephones causes brain tumors, but they are not sufficient to evaluate
the risks among long-term, heavy users and for potentially long induction
periods.
PMID:
11150357 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
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