BMJ  2006;332:1035-1036 (29 April), doi:10.1136/bmj.332.7548.1035-c

Letter

Mobile phone use and risk of glioma in adults

Conclusions are questionable

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR—The study by Hepworth et al has severe shortcomings, including faulty interpretation and unfounded conclusions.¹ Is there really any occupational or environmental factor capable of inducing glioma in a period of 3 to 4 years (the average duration of use of a mobile phone in this study)? Not even after high doses of therapeutic x rays have such short latencies been observed.^{2 3}

Only 5% of cases had used a mobile phone for 10 or more years. Therefore, induction of glioma cannot be studied. Only an effect on tumour development and growth can possibly be detected. As pointed out,^{4 5} the case-control design is inefficient to study such effects if the duration of exposure is short.

Furthermore, if an effect on an already premalignant lesion is studied only exposures to that region are exposures at all. Therefore the only relevant analysis is that of laterality. And, surprisingly, this analysis resulted . . . [Full text of this article]

Institute of Environmental Health, Center for Public Health, Medical University of Vienna, Austria Michael.Kundi@meduniwien.ac.at

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