Mobile phone use may increase brain cancer risk.

Mobile phone use may increase brain cancer risk.

Apr 10, 2009

Kundi, M. 2009. The controversy about a possible relationship between mobile phone use and cancer. Environmental Health Perspectives. 117 (3): 316-324.
Synopsis by Jonathan Chevrier, Ph.D.

An analysis of previously published studies suggests that long-term mobile phone use may increase the risk of brain cancer.

While the number of people who own mobile phones has dramatically increased in the last decade, so has the controversy about the possible relationship between cell phone use and brain cancer risk.

The electromagnetic field that mobile phones generate is suspected of causing brain cancer.

Most of the studies investigating the effect of using mobile phones for less than 10 years found no association with brain cancer risk. However, the risk of glioma, a type of brain cancer, was increased by 50 percent in people who used mobile phones for 10 years or more relative to people who never used mobile phones. Risks of other types of brain cancers, such as acoustic neuroma and meningioma also tended to increase with mobile phone use.

Although a 50 percent increase in brain tumors would have significant impacts in terms of public health, Micheal Kundi, the author of the report, indicated that the individual risk would remain low given that lifetime brain tumor risk is only 4 to 8 per 1,000 persons in industrialized countries. More research on long term mobile phone use is however needed as these types of cancers take many years to develop.

Kundi reviewed results from 25 brain tumor studies published between 1999 and 2008. The information in those studies was collected through in-person interviews, computer-assisted interviews or mail-in questionnaires. Researchers then assessed mobile phone use in those with brain cancers relative to those without (controls).

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