Mobile Phone Use and Risk of Parotid Gland Tumor,

Lonn S, Ahlbom A, Christensen HC, Johansen C, Schuz J, Edstrom S, Henriksson G, Lundgren J, Wennerberg J, Feychting M,

Am J Epidemiol, Jul 3; 2006

[Epub ahead of print]

Handheld mobile phones were introduced in Denmark and Sweden during the late 1980s. This makes the Danish and Swedish populations suitable for a study aimed at testing the hypothesis that long-term mobile phone use increases the risk of parotid gland tumors.

In this population-based case-control study, the authors identified all cases aged 20-69 years diagnosed with parotid gland tumor during 2000-2002 in Denmark and certain parts of Sweden. Controls were randomly selected from the study population base.

Detailed information about mobile phone use was collected from 60 cases of malignant parotid gland tumors (85% response rate), 112 benign pleomorphic adenomas (88% response rate), and 681 controls (70% response rate).

For regular mobile phone use, regardless of duration, the risk estimates for malignant and benign tumors were 0.7 (95% confidence interval: 0.4, 1.3) and 0.9 (95% confidence interval: 0.5, 1.5), respectively. Similar results were found for more than 10 years' duration of mobile phone use.

The risk estimate did not increase, regardless of type of phone and amount of use. The authors conclude that the data do not support the hypothesis that mobile phone use is related to an increased risk of parotid gland tumors.