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Cancer & Tumors648 citations

Brain tumour risk in relation to mobile telephone use: results of the INTERPHONE international case-control study.

No Effects Found

The INTERPHONE Study Group. · 2010

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The INTERPHONE study found no overall increase in glioma or meningioma risk with mobile phone use, though the highest exposure group showed a suggestion of increased glioma risk that the authors attributed to bias.

Plain English Summary

Summary written for general audiences

An interview-based case-control study with 2708 glioma and 2409 meningioma cases and matched controls was conducted in 13 countries using a common protocol. Ever regular mobile phone use was associated with reduced odds ratios for glioma (OR 0.81, 95% CI 0.70-0.94) and meningioma (OR 0.79, 95% CI 0.68-0.91), possibly reflecting participation bias. No elevated odds ratio was observed 10 or more years after first phone use for either tumor type. In the highest decile of recalled cumulative call time (≥1640 hours), the odds ratio for glioma was 1.40 (95% CI 1.03-1.89) and for meningioma was 1.15 (95% CI 0.81-1.62), but the authors noted implausible values of reported use in this group.

Why This Matters

Odds ratios were below 1.0 for all deciles of lifetime number of phone calls and for nine deciles of cumulative call time. Glioma odds ratios tended to be greater in the temporal lobe than in other brain lobes, though confidence intervals around lobe-specific estimates were wide. Glioma odds ratios also tended to be greater for people who reported usual phone use on the same side of the head as their tumour compared to the opposite side. The authors concluded that possible effects of long-term heavy mobile phone use require further investigation.

Study Details

The aim of this study is to investigate Brain tumour risk in relation to mobile telephone use: results of the INTERPHONE international case-control study.

An interview-based case-control study with 2708 glioma and 2409 meningioma cases and matched control...

A reduced odds ratio (OR) related to ever having been a regular mobile phone user was seen for gliom...

Overall, no increase in risk of glioma or meningioma was observed with use of mobile phones. There were suggestions of an increased risk of glioma at the highest exposure levels, but biases and error prevent a causal interpretation. The possible effects of long-term heavy use of mobile phones require further investigation.

Cite This Study
The INTERPHONE Study Group. (2010). Brain tumour risk in relation to mobile telephone use: results of the INTERPHONE international case-control study. Int J Epidemiol.39(3):675-94,2010.
Show BibTeX
@article{group._2010_brain_tumour_risk_in_3105,
  author = {The INTERPHONE Study Group.},
  title = {Brain tumour risk in relation to mobile telephone use: results of the INTERPHONE international case-control study.},
  year = {2010},
  
  url = {https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20483835/},
}
PubMed: 20483835

Cited By (648 papers)

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Quick Questions About This Study

Overall, no increase in risk of glioma or meningioma was observed with use of mobile phones.
In the 10th decile of recalled cumulative call time (≥1640 hours), the odds ratio was 1.40 for glioma and 1.15 for meningioma, but the authors noted implausible values of reported use in this group.
No elevated odds ratio was observed 10 or more years after first phone use for either glioma or meningioma.
Odds ratios for glioma tended to be greater in the temporal lobe and for same-side phone use, but confidence intervals were wide.
The authors stated that biases and error prevent a causal interpretation of the suggested increased glioma risk at the highest exposure levels.