BMJ, doi: 10.1136/bmj.38720.687975.55, (Published 20 January 2006)

RESEARCH

Mobile phone use and risk of glioma in adults: case-control study

Sarah J Hepworth ¹, Minouk J Schoemaker ², Kenneth R Muir ³, Anthony J Swerdlow ², Martie J A van Tongeren ⁴, Patricia A McKinney ^1*

¹ Centre for Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Leeds Institute of Genetics, Health, and Therapeutics (LIGHT), Leeds LS2 9LN
² Institute of Cancer Research, Section of Epidemiology, Sutton, Surrey SM2 5NG
³ Division of Epidemiology and Public Health, School of Community Health Sciences, Queen's Medical Centre, Nottingham NG7 2UH
⁴ Centre for Occupational and Environmental Health, Division of Epidemiology and Health Sciences, University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL

^* Correspondence to: p.a.mckinney{at}leeds.ac.uk.

Objective To investigate the risk of glioma in adults in relation to mobile phone use.

Design Population based case-control study with collection of personal interview data.

Setting Five areas of the United Kingdom.

Participants 966 people aged 18 to 69 years diagnosed with a glioma from 1 December 2000 to 29 February 2004 and 1716 controls randomly selected from general practitioner lists.

Main outcome measures Odds ratios for risk of glioma in relation to mobile phone use.

Results The overall odds ratio for regular phone use was 0.94 (95% confidence interval 0.78 to 1.13). There was no relation for risk of glioma and time since first use, lifetime years of use, and cumulative number of calls and hours of use. A significant excess risk for reported phone use ipsilateral to the tumour (1.24, 1.02 to 1.52) was paralleled by a significant reduction in risk (0.75, 0.61 to 0.93) for contralateral use.

Conclusions Use of a mobile phone, either in the short or medium term, is not associated with an increased risk of glioma. This is consistent with most but not all published studies. The complementary positive and negative risks associated with ipsilateral and contralateral use of the phone in relation to the side of the tumour might be due to recall bias.

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(Accepted 14 November 2005)
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Rapid Responses:

Read all Rapid Responses

Minimising Bias

Corinne Powell
bmj.com, 20 Jan 2006 [Full text]

Amateur Radio Response

Sheldon L. Epstein
bmj.com, 21 Jan 2006 [Full text]

Mobile phone use and risk of gioma in adults: case-control study

Samuel Milham, et al.
bmj.com, 21 Jan 2006 [Full text]

Bias

Daniel Reicher
bmj.com, 22 Jan 2006 [Full text]

Main conclusion is not justified

Alasdair M Philips
bmj.com, 23 Jan 2006 [Full text]

Re: Amateur Radio Response

Samuel Milham
bmj.com, 24 Jan 2006 [Full text]

Re: Amateur Radio Response

John P Heptonstall Graduate mathematician and physicist
bmj.com, 28 Jan 2006 [Full text]

Conclusions on glioma risk of mobile phone use questionable

Michael Kundi
bmj.com, 25 Jan 2006 [Full text]

Low Participation Rates/Exposed Reference Group/Conflict-of-Interest

L. Lloyd Morgan
bmj.com, 28 Jan 2006 [Full text]

Re: Low Participation Rates/Exposed Reference Group/Conflict-of-Interest

David Bücher
bmj.com, 30 Jan 2006 [Full text]

Mobile phone use and risk of glioma in adults: case-control study.

bruce hocking
bmj.com, 3 Feb 2006 [Full text]

Re: Mobile phone use and risk of glioma in adults: case-control study

Lennart Hardell, et al.
bmj.com, 20 Apr 2006 [Full text]

Selective Recall Bias?

Bart J. Harvey
bmj.com, 21 May 2006 [Full text]

Cell Phones Protective Against Glioma--Alternate Explanation

Eric L yarnell
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Mobile Phone use and oliodendroglioma

Suki Rai
bmj.com, 30 Jan 2008 [Full text]