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Cancer & Tumors

Use of mobile phones and risk of brain tumours: update of Danish cohort study.

No Effects Found

Frei P, Poulsen AH, Johansen C, Olsen JH, Steding-Jessen M, Schüz J. · 2011

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This 18-year Danish study of 58,000 mobile phone users found no increased brain tumor risk, even with over a decade of use.

Plain English Summary

Summary written for general audiences

Danish researchers tracked nearly 60,000 mobile phone subscribers for up to 18 years to see if they developed brain tumors at higher rates than non-subscribers. They found no increased risk of brain tumors, including gliomas and meningiomas, even among people who had used phones for 13 or more years. The study provides reassuring evidence that mobile phone use doesn't appear to cause brain cancer.

Study Details

To investigate the risk of tumours in the central nervous system among Danish mobile phone subscribers.

All Danes aged ≥30 and born in Denmark after 1925, subdivided into subscribers and non-subscribers o...

58 403 subscription holders accrued 3.8 million person years. In the follow-up period 1990-2007, the...

In this update of a large nationwide cohort study of mobile phone use, there were no increased risks of tumours of the central nervous system, providing little evidence for a causal association.

Cite This Study
Frei P, Poulsen AH, Johansen C, Olsen JH, Steding-Jessen M, Schüz J. (2011). Use of mobile phones and risk of brain tumours: update of Danish cohort study. BMJ. 2011 Oct 19;343:d6387. doi: 10.1136/bmj.d6387.
Show BibTeX
@article{p_2011_use_of_mobile_phones_3027,
  author = {Frei P and Poulsen AH and Johansen C and Olsen JH and Steding-Jessen M and Schüz J.},
  title = {Use of mobile phones and risk of brain tumours: update of Danish cohort study.},
  year = {2011},
  
  url = {https://www.bmj.com/content/343/bmj.d6387},
}

Quick Questions About This Study

No, a major Danish study tracking nearly 60,000 mobile phone subscribers for up to 18 years found no increased brain tumor risk, even among people who used phones for 13 or more years. The incidence rate ratio was 1.03 for men and 0.91 for women.
Danish researchers found no connection between long-term cell phone use and these specific brain tumor types. Among subscribers with 10+ years of use, glioma ratios were 1.04 for both men and women, while meningioma ratios were 0.90 for men and 0.93 for women.
No, the Danish cohort study found no increased tumor rates in brain regions closest to where handsets are typically held against the head. There was no indication of location-specific effects or dose-response relationship based on anatomical proximity to phone placement.
The study documented 10,729 cases of central nervous system tumors among 58,403 mobile phone subscribers during the 1990-2007 follow-up period, representing 3.8 million person-years of observation. The tumor rates matched expected levels for the general population.
No, Danish researchers found no dose-response relationship between years of mobile phone subscription and brain tumor development. Even subscribers with the longest usage periods showed tumor rates close to unity, indicating no increased risk compared to the general population.