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2011-10-21 09:18:29
By Nick Triggle Health correspondent, BBC News
Further research has been published suggesting there is no link between mobile
phones and brain cancer.
The risk mobiles present has been much debated over the past 20 years as use of
the phones has soared.
The latest study led by the Institute of Cancer Epidemiology in Denmark looked
at more than 350,000 people with mobile phones over an 18-year period.
Researchers concluded users were at no greater risk than anyone else of
developing brain cancer.
The findings, published on the British Medical Journal website, come after a
series of studies have come to similar conclusions.
'Reassuring'
But there has also been some research casting doubt on mobile phone safety,
prompting the World Health Organization to warn that they could still be
carcinogenic.
In doing so, the WHO put mobile phones in the same category as coffee, meaning
a link could not be ruled out but could not be proved either.
The Department of Health continue to advise that anyone under the age of 16
should use mobile phones only for essential purposes and keep all calls short.
Start Quote
These results are the strongest evidence yet that using a mobile phone does not
seem to increase the risk of cancers of the brain or central nervous system in
adults
Hazel Nunn Cancer Research UK
The Danish study, which built on previous research that has already been
published by carrying out a longer follow-up, found there was no significant
difference in rates of brain or central nervous system cancers among those who
had mobiles and those that did not.
Of the 358,403 mobile phone owners looked at, 356 gliomas (a type of brain
cancer) and 846 cancers of the central nervous system were seen - both in line
with incidence rates among those who did not own a mobile.
Even among those who had had mobiles the longest - 13 years or more - the risk
was no higher, the researchers concluded.
But they still said mobile phone use warranted continued follow up to ensure
cancers were not developing over the longer term, and to see what the effect
was in children.
Hazel Nunn, head of evidence and health information at Cancer Research UK,
said: "These results are the strongest evidence yet that using a mobile phone
does not seem to increase the risk of cancers of the brain or central nervous
system in adults."
Prof Anders Ahlbom, from Sweden's Karolinska Institute, praised the way the
study was conducted, adding the findings were "reassuring".
Prof David Spiegelhalter, an expert specialising in the understanding of risk
who is based at the University of Cambridge, said: "The mobile phone records
only go up to 1995 and so the comparison is mainly between early and late
adopters, but the lack of any effect on brain tumours is still very important
evidence."
And Prof Malcolm Sperrin, director of medical physics at Royal Berkshire
Hospital, said: "The findings clearly reveal that there is no additional
overall risk of developing a cancer in the brain although there does seem to be
some minor, and not statistically significant, variations in the type of
cancer."
But the researchers themselves do accept there were some limitations to the
study, including the exclusion of "corporate subscriptions", thereby excluding
people who used their phones for business purposes, who could be among the
heaviest users.