Meningioma and mobile phone use--a collaborative case-control study in five North European countries.

BACKGROUND: Use of mobile telephones has been suggested as a possible risk factor for intracranial tumours. To evaluate the effect of mobile phones on risk of meningioma, we carried out an international, collaborative case-control study of 1209 meningioma cases and 3299 population-based controls. METHODS: Population-based cases were identified, mostly from hospitals, and controls from national population registers and general practitioners' patient lists. Detailed history of mobile phone use was obtained by personal interview. Regular mobile phone use (at least once a week for at least 6 months), duration of use, cumulative number and hours of use, and several other indicators of mobile phone use were assessed in relation to meningioma risk using conditional logistic regression with strata defined by age, sex, country and region. RESULTS: Risk of meningioma among regular users of mobile phones was apparently lower than among never or non-regular users (odds ratio, OR = 0.76, 95% confidence interval, CI 0.65, 0.89). The risk was not increased in relation to years since first use, lifetime years of use, cumulative hours of use or cumulative number of calls. The findings were similar regardless of telephone network type (analogue/digital), age or sex. CONCLUSIONS: Our results do not provide support for an association between mobile phone use and risk of meningioma.

Mobile phone use and risk of acoustic neuroma: results of the Interphone case-control study in five North European countries.

There is public concern that use of mobile phones could increase the risk of brain tumours. If such an effect exists, acoustic neuroma would be of particular concern because of the proximity of the acoustic nerve to the handset. We conducted, to a shared protocol, six population-based case-control studies in four Nordic countries and the UK to assess the risk of acoustic neuroma in relation to mobile phone use. Data were collected by personal interview from 678 cases of acoustic neuroma and 3553 controls. The risk of acoustic neuroma in relation to regular mobile phone use in the pooled data set was not raised (odds ratio (OR) = 0.9, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.7-1.1). There was no association of risk with duration of use, lifetime cumulative hours of use or number of calls, for phone use overall or for analogue or digital phones separately. Risk of a tumour on the same side of the head as reported phone use was raised for use for 10 years or longer (OR = 1.8, 95% CI: 1.1-3.1). The study suggests that there is no substantial risk of acoustic neuroma in the first decade after starting mobile phone use. However, an increase in risk after longer term use or after a longer lag period could not be ruled out.

Cellular telephones and risk for brain tumors: a population-based, incident case-control study.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate a possible association of glioma or meningioma with use of cellular telephones, using a nationwide population-based case-control study of incident cases of meningioma and glioma. METHODS: The authors ascertained all incident cases of glioma and meningioma diagnosed in Denmark between September 1, 2000, and August 31, 2002. They enrolled 252 persons with glioma and 175 persons with meningioma aged 20 to 69. The authors also enrolled 822 randomly sampled, population-based controls matched for age and sex. Information was obtained from personal interviews, medical records containing diagnoses, and the results of radiologic examinations. For a small number of cases and controls, the authors obtained the numbers of incoming and outgoing calls. They evaluated the memory of the respondents with the Mini-Mental State Examination and obtained data on socioeconomic factors from Statistics Denmark. RESULTS: There were no material socioeconomic differences between cases and controls or participants and non-participants. Use of cellular telephone was associated with a low risk for high-grade glioma (OR, 0.58; 95% CI, 0.37 to 0.90). The risk estimates were closer to unity for low-grade glioma (1.08; 0.58 to 2.00) and meningioma (1.00; 0.54 to 1.28). CONCLUSION: The results do not support an association between use of cellular telephones and risk for glioma or meningioma.