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Brain and Salivary Gland Tumors and Mobile Phone Use: Evaluating the Evidence from Various Epidemiological Study Designs.

  • Röösli M Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, 4051 Basel, Switzerland; email: martin.roosli@swisstph.ch.
  • Lagorio S Department of Oncology and Molecular Medicine, National Institute of Health, 00161 Rome, Italy.
  • Schoemaker MJ Division of Genetics and Epidemiology, The Institute of Cancer Research, London SM2 5NG, United Kingdom.
  • Schüz J Section of Environment and Radiation, International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), 69372 Lyon, France.
  • Feychting M Institute of Environmental Medicine, Karolinska Institutet, 171 77 Stockholm, Sweden.
  • 2019-01-12
Published in:
  • Annual review of public health. - 2019
acoustic neuroma
central nervous system tumor
glioma
intracranial tumor
meningioma
mobile phones
pituitary gland tumor
radiofrequency electromagnetic fields
salivary gland tumor
Adult
Aged
Aged, 80 and over
Brain Neoplasms
Case-Control Studies
Cell Phone Use
Electromagnetic Fields
Epidemiologic Research Design
Female
Humans
Male
Middle Aged
Risk Assessment
Salivary Gland Neoplasms
English Mobile phones (MPs) are the most relevant source of radiofrequency electromagnetic field (RF-EMF) exposure to the brain and the salivary gland. Whether this exposure implies a cancer risk has been addressed in several case-control and few cohort studies. A meta-analysis of these studies does not show increased risks for meningioma, pituitary, and salivary gland tumors. For glioma and acoustic neuroma, the results are heterogeneous, with few case-control studies reporting substantially increased risks. However, these elevated risks are not coherent with observed incidence time trends, which are considered informative for this specific topic owing to the steep increase in MP use, the availability of virtually complete cancer registry data from many countries, and the limited number of known competing environmental risk factors. In conclusion, epidemiological studies do not suggest increased brain or salivary gland tumor risk with MP use, although some uncertainty remains regarding long latency periods (>15 years), rare brain tumor subtypes, and MP usage during childhood.
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  • English
Open access status
gold
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https://sonar.ch/global/documents/23150
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