WASHINGTON-European researchers said a major study found consumers are not apt to have a nervous-system tumor known as acoustic neuroma develop during the first 10 years of mobile-phone use, but cautioned that an increased risk after longer use could not be ruled out.
The study, said to be the largest investigation of the relationship between analog and digital mobile phones used in the United Kingdom, Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden and acoustic neuroma, was conducted by the London-based Institute of Cancer Research.
The results, published online Tuesday in the British Journal of Cancer, are at odds with other studies in which mobile-phone use has been linked to increased risk of acoustic neuroma. An acoustic neuroma manifests itself as a benign tumor that grows in the nerve connecting the ear and inner ear to the brain. The typically slow-growing tumors can lead to hearing loss and a loss of balance, but do not spread to other parts of the body.
The risk of acoustic neuroma is of key interest to scientists because of the proximity of the acoustic nerve to the handset.
Data were collected from 678 people with acoustic neuroma and 3,553 people who did not have acoustic neuroma, the latter comprising the controls. Participants were queried about past mobile-phone use-such as length and frequency of calls, makes and models of phones used, and extent of hands-free use-and about other factors that might affect their risk of acoustic neuroma.
“Mobile phones have only been used widely over the past decade so we won’t know the long-term effects for many years. However, the results of this multicountry study with such a large number of participants is a great step forward in our understanding of the possible health effects of mobile phones,” said Prof. Peter Rigby, chief executive of the Institute Of Cancer Research.
The mobile-phone industry likely will highlight the new findings in health-related lawsuits pending in various federal and state courts in the United States.
Government health officials in the United States and overseas say most research to date does not point to an association between cell phones and adverse health affects, but note more research is necessary to address studies in which bioeffects have been observed and because cell phones represent a relatively recent technology used by billions of individuals around the world.
