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Cell phones and other handheld technology have become almost like a staple in our society. School, work, and basic communication is done through these devices and the use of them continues to rise. In high school my health teacher said that phones could have adverse affects on humans, specifically pertaining to cancer. I am curious to know if this has been proven.

So what has caused the speculation that cell phones cause cancer?? It is due to the radiofrequency energy emissions of phones. “Radiofrequency is a form of electromagnetic radiation.” (National Cancer Institute) Ionizing radiation has been linked to cancer because it causes damage to DNA, but non-ionizing radiation does not. Radiofrequency falls under the category of non-ionizing radiation and therefore has not been found to be causal of cancer.

Studies were conducted to determine the relationship, if any, of cell phone use and head and neck tumors. The first was a case-control study. Therefore the study compared the amount of cell phone use between those with tumors and those without. The results were obtained by interviewing randomly selected 30-59 year olds. I think this was a good age group because cell phones are fairly “new” and this age group are more likely to have used cell phones for more years than that of older or younger generations. They were individually interviewed and asked to complete a questionnaire asking questions pertaining to demographics and cell phone use.

The results of this study showed no change in the odd ratios of glioma or meningioma in relation to cell phone use. The results for acoustic neuroma, however, were slightly different. “There was no trend of increasing ORs with increasing cumulative call time or cumulative number of calls, with the lowest OR (0.48 (0.30‐0.78)) observed in the 9th decile of cumulative call time.” (IIARC Report on Interphone Study) Those on the high end of the spectrum of cell phone use (greater than or equal to 1640 hours) were observed to have a higher OR of 1.32. All of the other data reported refutes this higher OR so, as discussed in class, this result could be highly due to chance or a mistake in the study.

A cohort study was done in Denmark on a group of 385,000 cell phone users over the age of 30. Their cell phone bills were tracked as well as “brain tumor incidence data from the Danish Cancer Registry.” (National Cancer Institute) For those who had a subscription greater than or equal to 13 years “the incidence rate ratio was 1.03 (95% confidence interval 0.83 to 1.27) in men and 0.91 (0.41 to 2.04) in women.” (National Cancer Institute) These ratios showed little to no evidence that suggests there is a causal relationship between cell phones and cancer.

Although the results of these study, I do believe they could have been changed to get better results. In the Interphone study, there is a likelihood of inaccurate reporting of cell phone use. In both cases, confounding variables are absolutely possible because many other things are believed be linked to causing cancer. Chance is, of course, another possibility.

I also think that although the age of the study groups were logical in terms of the rising popularity of cell phone usage, a study should be conducted on multiple age groups. I think a study should be created in which a group of 4 or 5 year olds are observed for 20-30 years. This study should take into consideration cell phone use and other demographic factors. Alongside this age group I think other age groups should be observed such as teens (11-18), and people in their 20s and 30s. This study may also help to determine if certain age groups are more susceptible to brain cancers (for example maybe the younger kids are more at risk because their brains are developing more).

This graph, provided by the National Cancer Institute, supports the results of these studies by showing that as the use of cell phones increased, the number of brain cancer incidences stayed around the same with slight fluctuation possibly due to confounding variables.

http://www.cancer.gov/

Bottom line: There has yet to be results proving that cell phone use correlates with an increased risk of cancer in the head and neck. Long-term studies are in the process of being completed, such as COSMOS and Mobi-Kids in order to see if more time provides better results. If you are concerned about radiofrequency exposure, try using speaker phone or headphones in order to keep the phone further away from your head, or simply talk on the phone less often!

Sources:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09553000500091097

http://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/radiation/cell-phones-fact-sheet

http://interphone.iarc.fr/UICC_Report_Final_03102011.pdf