Mobile phone use and the risk for malignant brain tumors: A case-control study on deceased cases and controls.
Hardell L, Carlberg M, Hansson Mild K. · 2010
View Original AbstractMobile phone use for over 10 years more than doubled malignant brain tumor risk, with heaviest users facing 3.4 times normal risk.
Plain English Summary
Swedish researchers studied 346 people who died from malignant brain tumors and found those who used mobile phones for more than 10 years had 2.4 times higher risk of developing these deadly brain cancers. The risk climbed even higher for people with over 2,000 hours of lifetime mobile phone use, reaching 3.4 times normal risk. This study is particularly significant because it examined deceased cases, eliminating the possibility that living brain tumor patients might wrongly blame their phones for their illness.
Why This Matters
This research from Hardell's team addresses one of the most persistent criticisms of mobile phone-brain tumor studies: recall bias. By studying deceased cases and their families, the researchers eliminated the possibility that brain tumor patients might overestimate their phone use after diagnosis. The findings are sobering. A 240% increased risk after 10 years of use isn't a marginal statistical blip, it's a substantial elevation in cancer risk. What makes this particularly relevant today is that 2,000 hours of lifetime use translates to roughly 3-4 hours per week over 10 years, a usage pattern that millions of people now exceed easily. The dose-response relationship they found, where more hours of use correlated with higher cancer risk, strengthens the biological plausibility of a causal connection. While the wireless industry continues to cite studies showing no effects, independent research like this consistently points in the opposite direction.
Exposure Information
Specific exposure levels were not quantified in this study.
Study Details
We investigated the use of mobile or cordless phones and the risk for malignant brain tumors in a group of deceased cases. Most previous studies have either left out deceased cases of brain tumors or matched them to living controls and therefore a study matching deceased cases to deceased controls is warranted.
In this study brain tumor cases aged 20-80 years diagnosed during 1997-2003 that had died before inc...
Replies were obtained for 346 (75%) cases, 343 (74%) cancer controls and 276 (60%) controls with oth...
This investigation confirmed our previous results of an association between mobile phone use and malignant brain tumors.
Show BibTeX
@article{l_2010_mobile_phone_use_and_2174,
author = {Hardell L and Carlberg M and Hansson Mild K.},
title = {Mobile phone use and the risk for malignant brain tumors: A case-control study on deceased cases and controls.},
year = {2010},
url = {https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20551697/},
}