Incidence trends of adult primary intracerebral tumors in four Nordic countries.
Lonn S, Klaeboe L, Hall P, Mathiesen T, Auvinen A, Christensen HC, Johansen C, Salminen T, Tynes T, Feychting M. · 2004
View Original AbstractBrain tumor rates stabilized after 1983 despite rising mobile phone use, suggesting diagnostic improvements, not phones, drove earlier increases.
Plain English Summary
Researchers tracked brain tumor rates across four Nordic countries from 1969 to 1998, covering the period when mobile phones were first introduced. They found that brain tumor incidence increased in the late 1970s and early 1980s due to improved diagnostic methods, but remained stable after 1983 despite growing mobile phone use. This suggests that better medical imaging, not mobile phones, explains the earlier increases in reported brain tumors.
Why This Matters
This Nordic study provides important context for understanding brain tumor trends during the early mobile phone era. The research demonstrates that improved diagnostic capabilities, particularly CT and MRI scanning introduced in the late 1970s and early 1980s, can explain increases in reported brain tumor cases without invoking environmental causes. What's particularly significant is that tumor rates stabilized after 1983, precisely when mobile phone adoption began accelerating across these countries. While this epidemiological data doesn't definitively rule out long-term risks from mobile phone radiation, it does suggest that any immediate cancer-causing effects would likely have been detectable in population-level data by the late 1990s. The study's strength lies in its comprehensive national registry data spanning 30 years across multiple countries with excellent healthcare systems and record-keeping.
Exposure Information
Specific exposure levels were not quantified in this study.
Study Details
The aim of our study was to describe the incidence trends of adult primary intracerebral tumors in four Nordic countries during a period with introduction of new diagnostic procedures and increasing prevalence of mobile phone users.
Information about benign and malignant primary intracerebral tumor cases 20-79 years of age was obta...
The overall incidence of all intracerebral tumors ranged from 8.4-11.8 for men and 5.8-9.3 for women...
Show BibTeX
@article{s_2004_incidence_trends_of_adult_2374,
author = {Lonn S and Klaeboe L and Hall P and Mathiesen T and Auvinen A and Christensen HC and Johansen C and Salminen T and Tynes T and Feychting M.},
title = {Incidence trends of adult primary intracerebral tumors in four Nordic countries.},
year = {2004},
url = {https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14648713/},
}