Study Finds No Link Between Cell Phone Use, Brain Tumors

A new study found no link between use of cell phones and the risk of developing a brain tumor.

The Danish study questioned hundreds of people with brain tumors and people without brain tumors about their cell phone use. Researchers found no increased risk for brain tumors related to cell phone use, frequency of use or number of years of use.

The study is published in Tuesday's issue of Neurology, the scientific journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

"These results are in line with other large studies on this question, including a recently published large-scale, population-based study by the Swedish Interphone Study Group," said Dr. Christoffer Johansen, the study's author.

"There have been a few studies that found an increased risk of brain tumors with cell phone use, but those studies have been criticized for problems with the study design," Johansen added.

The researchers obtained phone records for some of the study participants and compared the amount and length of calls to the actual calls that the participants reported.

They found that people accurately remembered the number of calls they made, but did not accurately remember the length of those calls -- but there were no differences in how those with brain tumors and those without portrayed their cell phone use. Johansen said that finding minimizes the chance that people with a brain tumor might have exaggerated or underestimated their past cell phone use.

He said there have been few long-term cell phone users or heavy cell phone users in any of the studies.

"In our study, few people reported regular cell phone use for 10 years or more," he said.

As a result, the researchers said they cannot make conclusions until they can confirm their results with future studies of long-term and heavy cell phone users.

The researchers also found that brain tumors did not form more frequently on the sides of the head where the phone was typically used.

Study Abstract