Mobile Telephony Increases Brain Tumour Risk
National Institute Of Working Life
August 21, 2002

NMT (Nordic Mobil Telephone) users run a greater risk of suffering a brain tumour. This is the conclusion of the largest study so far into mobile phone use and the risk of brain tumours, published in the European Journal of Cancer Prevention.

It is clear that NMT users should exercise caution, states Professor Kjell Hansson Mild of the Swedish National Institute for Working Life, who worked on the study with Professor Lennart Hardell of Örebro University Hospital.

The study comprises 1,617 patients diagnosed with a brain tumour during the period 1997 to June 2000 in central Sweden. These were then compared with an equally large control group with no brain tumours. NMT users were shown statistically to run a 1.3 times greater risk. Viewed over a ten year period, the risk is 1.8 times greater.

The risk is higher primarily in the temporal lobe, on the same side as the phone is used. Here the risk is 2.5 times greater. The type of tumour showing the largest increase, a 3.5 times greater risk, is tumours of the auditory nerve.

There was not the same clear increase in risk for GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) phone users. In this context, the use of GSM is a relatively new phenomenon and nobody in the study had been using such a phone for more than ten years.

Although we can see similar tendencies, any conclusions regarding these phones must wait until the results of other ongoing studies are published, comments Kjell Hansson Mild.