A new study from the Journal of Oncology (February 2006) shows that long term usage of mobile and cordless phones may well increase that chance of getting brain cancer. Usage of analogue mobile phones for longer than 1 year was found to increase the risk of acoustic neuroma threefold. Both GSM digital phones and cordless telephones were found to increase the risk by approximately 50%.
It is currently unlikely for a study to find much of an association between a cause and brain cancer with less than 10 years exposure as it usually takes at least this long for brain cancer to develop to the point it is diagnosed. This is one of the first studies thought to be capable of making a genuine assessment of mobile phone usage for longer than 10 years.
The increased relative risk results are found for GSM phone users who have used their phone for al least 64 hours in total (i. e. 64 minutes per month over 5 years or 32 minutes per month over 10 years) and cordless phone users over 195 hours (i. e. 98 minutes per month or 3 minutes each days, averaged over 10 years.
The most concerning finding is the statistically significant association of all benign brain tumours with cordless phone use, showing a doubling in risk for more than 10 years use at a very low average use per day. As the average latency time for these benign tumours is thought to be a 10 years or greater, it would be very helpful to conduct a larger study in a few years or when it is possible to get both a) a larger sample of long term users of mobile phones, and b) a longer period of usage for the long term users.
Sources :
http://histology1.med.uoc.gr/ijo/ijo.htm
http://www.powerwatch.org.uk/news/20060206_brain_tumours.asp
Source: http://win.infoamica.it/engart.asp?a=13&sa=0&art=286
