Am J Epidemiol 2004; 159:277-283.
Cellular Telephone Use and Risk of Acoustic Neuroma
Helle
Collatz Christensen1 , Joachim Schüz2, Michael
Kosteljanetz3, Hans Skovgaard Poulsen4, Jens Thomsen5
and Christoffer Johansen1
1 Institute of
Cancer Epidemiology, Danish Cancer Society, Copenhagen, Denmark.
2 Institute for Medical Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Informatics,
University of Mainz, Mainz, Germany.
3 Neurosurgical Department, Neuroscience Centre, University Hospital
of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.
4 Department of Radiation Biology, Finsen Centre, University
Hospital of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.
5 Department of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery, Gentofte
Hospital, University of Copenhagen, Hellerup, Denmark.
Despite limited evidence,
cellular telephones have been claimed to cause cancer, especially in
the brain. In this Danish study, the authors examined the possible
association between use of cellular telephones and development of
acoustic neuroma. Between 2000 and 2002, they ascertained 106
incident cases and matched these persons with 212 randomly sampled,
population-based controls on age and sex. The data obtained included
information on use of cellular telephones from personal interviews,
data from medical records, and the results of radiologic
examinations. The authors obtained information on socioeconomic
factors from Statistics Denmark. The overall estimated relative risk
of acoustic neuroma was 0.90 (95% confidence interval: 0.51, 1.57).
Use of a cell phone for 10 years or more did not increase acoustic
neuroma risk over that of short-term users. Furthermore, tumors did
not occur more frequently on the side of the head on which the telephone
was typically used, and the size of the tumor did not correlate with
the pattern of cell phone use. The results of this prospective,
population-based, nationwide study, which included a large number of
long-term users of cellular telephones, do not support an
association between cell phone use and risk of acoustic neuroma.