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Cancer & Tumors345 citations

Handheld cellular telephone use and risk of brain cancer.

No Effects Found

Muscat JE, Malkin MG, Thompson S, Shore RE, Stellman SD, McRee D, Neugut AI, Wynder EL · 2000

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Early cell phone study found no brain cancer link, but exposure periods were too short to detect slow-developing tumors.

Plain English Summary

Summary written for general audiences

Researchers studied 469 brain cancer patients and 422 healthy controls to see if cell phone use increased brain cancer risk. They found no association between handheld cell phone use and brain cancer, even among the heaviest users (over 10 hours per month). However, the study period was relatively short, with users averaging less than 3 years of exposure.

Study Details

To test the hypothesis that using handheld cellular telephones is related to the risk of primary brain cancer.

Case-control study conducted in 5 US academic medical centers between 1994 and 1998 using a structur...

The median monthly hours of use were 2.5 for cases and 2.2 for controls. Compared with patients who ...

Our data suggest that use of handheld cellular telephones is not associated with risk of brain cancer, but further studies are needed to account for longer induction periods, especially for slow-growing tumors with neuronal features.

Cite This Study
Muscat JE, Malkin MG, Thompson S, Shore RE, Stellman SD, McRee D, Neugut AI, Wynder EL (2000). Handheld cellular telephone use and risk of brain cancer. JAMA 284(23):3001-3007, 2000.
Show BibTeX
@article{je_2000_handheld_cellular_telephone_use_3261,
  author = {Muscat JE and Malkin MG and Thompson S and Shore RE and Stellman SD and McRee D and Neugut AI and Wynder EL},
  title = {Handheld cellular telephone use and risk of brain cancer.},
  year = {2000},
  
  url = {https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11122586/},
}

Quick Questions About This Study

Researchers studied 469 brain cancer patients and 422 healthy controls to see if cell phone use increased brain cancer risk. They found no association between handheld cell phone use and brain cancer, even among the heaviest users (over 10 hours per month). However, the study period was relatively short, with users averaging less than 3 years of exposure.