Study finds no link between cancer and mobiles

Many studies have linked brain cancer to mobile phones

New research has cast doubt on previous scientific conclusions that mobile phones can cause brain cancer.

The new study shows that the growth of mobile phone use in northern European countries has had no impact on the number of patients diagnosed with brain cancer.

The Time Trends in Brain Tumor Incidence Rates study, published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute (JNCI), analysed time trends in the incidence of glioma and meningioma in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden from 1974 to 2003, using data from national cancer registries.

Researchers argued that, as mobile phone use increased sharply in the mid-1990s, the number of brain cancer patients would have risen after five to 10 years if there was a link between the two. The study found that incidences of brain tumours did not rise after 1998.

The JNCI study was based on the entire adult populations in the countries analysed, using a total population base of 16 million.

However, the JNCI acknowledged that there could be other reasons for the lack of a detectable change in the incident rates of brain cancer up to 2003.

These include the possibility that the induction period for brain tumors associated with mobile phone use could exceed five to 10 years, the increased risk of brain tumors associated with mobile phone use in the population analysed could be too small to be observed, and the risk could be restricted to subgroups of brain tumors or mobile phone users.