Case-control study of the association between malignant brain tumours diagnosed between 2007 and 2009 and mobile and cordless phone use.
Hardell L, Carlberg M, Söderqvist F, Mild KH. · 2013
View Original AbstractLong-term cell phone users face double the brain tumor risk after 15+ years of use, with risk highest on the phone-holding side.
Plain English Summary
Swedish researchers studied 593 people with malignant brain tumors and compared their cell phone and cordless phone use to healthy controls. They found that long-term users (15+ years) had roughly double the risk of developing brain tumors, with the highest risk (3.3 times higher) seen in people who used older analog phones for over 25 years. The risk was particularly elevated when people held phones on the same side of the head where tumors developed.
Why This Matters
This study adds to a growing body of evidence linking long-term wireless phone use to brain cancer risk. What makes this research particularly compelling is the dose-response relationship - the longer people used phones, the higher their cancer risk became. The finding that tumors were more likely to develop on the same side of the head where phones were held strengthens the biological plausibility of these results. The research team, led by Dr. Lennart Hardell, has consistently found similar associations across multiple studies spanning decades. While the wireless industry often dismisses such findings, this study's design specifically addressed potential biases by using meningioma cases as a reference group, making recall bias an unlikely explanation for the results. The reality is that your daily phone use exposes your brain to the same type of radiofrequency radiation that showed increased cancer risk in this study.
Exposure Information
Specific exposure levels were not quantified in this study.
Study Details
The aim of this study was to further explore the relationship between especially long-term (>10 years) use of wireless phones and the development of malignant brain tumours.
We conducted a new case-control study of brain tumour cases of both genders aged 18-75 years and dia...
Of the cases with a malignant brain tumour, 87% (n=593) participated, and 85% (n=1,368) of controls ...
This study confirmed previous results of an association between mobile and cordless phone use and malignant brain tumours. These findings provide support for the hypothesis that RF-EMFs play a role both in the initiation and promotion stages of carcinogenesis.
Show BibTeX
@article{l_2013_casecontrol_study_of_the_2175,
author = {Hardell L and Carlberg M and Söderqvist F and Mild KH.},
title = {Case-control study of the association between malignant brain tumours diagnosed between 2007 and 2009 and mobile and cordless phone use.},
year = {2013},
url = {https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24064953/},
}