ID Number		317
Study Type		Epidemiology
Model		INTERPHONE - UK + Scottland National site 900, 1800 MHz (NMT, GSM, W-CDMA) mobile phone use and correlation with brain, acoustic nerve, parotid gland tumors
Details		Cases of adult glioma (n = 966, 1716 controls) diagnosed from December 2000 to February 2004 from five different areas within the UK were analyzed for correlations with mobile phone use. Exposure was determined by personal interview. The authors report no overall correlation with mobile phone use (OR = 0.94; 95% CI 0.78 - 1.13) or with time since first use, lifetime years of use,and cumulative number of calls and hours of use. A significant risk was reported between mobile phone use and ipsilateral tumors (OR = 1.24; 95% CI 1.02 - 1.52), with an apparent reduction in risk for contralateral use ( OR = 0.75; 95% CI 0.61 - 0.93). Overall study findings: OR = 0.94; 95% CI 0.78-1.13 - overall glioma, OR = 1.24; 95% CI 1.02 -1.52 - ipsilateral glioma, OR = 0.75; 95% CI 0.61-0.93 - contralateral glioma. The authors conclude that use of a mobile phone in the short or medium term is not associated with an increased risk of glioma, and suggest the statistically positive and negative risks associated with ipsilateral and contralateral use, respectively, might be due to recall bias. In a report on pituitary tumors, the authors report no correlation with overall use (OR = 0.9; 95% CI 0.71.3), 10+ yrs after first use )OR = 1.0; 95% CI 0.51.9), or after 10+ yrs of cummulatove use (OR = 1.1; 95% CI 0.52.4) and conclude no evidence of developing pituitary tumors with mobile phone use within the time frame of analysis
Findings		Effects (replication needed)
Status		Completed With Publication
Principal Investigator		Inst Cancer Research, Sutton, UK - swerdlow@icr.ac.uk.
Funding Agency		EU, INTERPHONE (IARC) coordinated studies, MMF, MTHR (NRPB), UK, GSM Association
Country		UNITED KINGDOM
References		Schoemaker, MJ et al. Epidemiol, (2009) 20:348-354 Schoemaker, MJ et al. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev, (2009) 18:1492-1500 Hepworth, SJ et al. British Med J, (2006) 332:883-887 Morgan, LL BMJ., (2006) 332:1035-(1 page) Kundi, M BMJ., (2006) 332:1035-1036
Comments		In discussing the results, the statistically significant increase with ipsilateral tumors and statistically significant decrease with contralateral tumors is dismissed as recall bias, yet no specific explanation for how such bias was introduced is provided, and the authors start their discussion stating how their study is > 2x as large as previous studies (if this study does not provide dependable data, why perform any of these studies in the first place ?). And bias is supposed to be controlled for in these studies !!! UICC acts as a firewall for funding by MMF and GSMA - see http://www.iarc.fr/pageroot/UNITS/RCA4.html for details)