WORRIES about mobile phones may be eased by a study that indicates no link to brain cancer.

The study, in Denmark, compared the use of mobile phones by people who developed brain tumours with a group of otherwise healthy phone users. The results, published in Neurology, indicate that by three measures — using a phone, using it frequently or using it over several years — there is no evidence of a link with the development of brain tumours. They also found that brain tumours, when they did occur, did not show a tendency to be on the side of the head where a mobile phone was typically held.

Since the fears about mobile phones were raised, studies have been conducted in an attempt to show that the risks existed or to lay them to rest.

Christoffer Johansen, of the Danish Cancer Society, the author of the new study, said that his findings were in line with other large studies on the issue. “There have been a few that found an increased risk of brain tumours with cellphone use, but those have been criticised for problems with the study design,” he said.

Dr Johansen questioned 427 people with brain tumours and 822 in the healthy control group about their mobile phone use. Such retrospective studies, by asking people to remember after the event how often or for how long they used a mobile phone, run a risk of “recall bias”: those with tumours may be inclined to exaggerate their use.

To counter this, for a subset of people — 27 with brain tumours and 47 people without — the team got hold of records from mobile phone companies to document the amount and length of calls and compared the actual calls with what the participants reported.

This confirmed that people accurately remembered the number of calls they made but did not always accurately remember the length of those calls. This applied equally to both groups. Dr Johansen said that this finding minimised the possibility of recall bias.

The study is unlikely to be the last word because, like others, it did not include many long-term mobile phone users or people who used mobile phones heavily. “In our study, few people reported regular mobile phone use for ten years or more,” Dr Johansen said.

“We won’t be able to make any firm conclusions until we can confirm these results with studies with more long-term and heavy cellphone users.”

The study was supported by the European Commission’s Fifth Framework Programme, the International Union Against Cancer, the International Epidemiology Institute and the Danish Cancer Society.

There are about 60 million mobiles in use in the UK, with eight out of ten adults owning one. Seven years ago there were nine million subscribers.

TUNING IN TO A HEALTH SCARE

1996 Australian scientists claim that radiation from mobile phones can damage brain cells and make cancer cells grow faster

1997 Research at Royal Adelaide Hospital indicates that mice exposed to microwave radiation for 18 months show a doubled risk of lymphoma. Other studies fail to reproduce the effect

1999 Tests at Bristol University suggest that mobile phones cause brain heating but no perceptible ill-effects

2000 Committee chaired by Sir William Stewart finds no ill-effects but recommends discouraging children from using the phones

2001 Swedish study indicates that using a mobile for two hours a day for ten years nearly doubles the risk of a brain tumour

2004 National Radiological Protection Board report, also chaired by Sir William, says that risks are now more persuasive

2005 Second Swedish study fails to show a link between brain tumours and mobiles

2005 Danish Cancer Society fails to demonstrate links

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