Researchers have found no increase in the rate of brain tumors in the five to 10 years following widespread cell phone adoption in Northern Europe, according to a new study.

The researchers, from the Institute of Cancer Epidemiology in Copenhagen, studied 20 to 79 year old men and women from Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden, and paid special attention to cancer rates during the cell phone boom of the mid-1990s.

The researchers published their analysis in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
Overall the study found that cancer rates were unchanged from the period before mobile phones were widely used.

Study covers 30 years

The study was based on 59,684 brain tumor cases diagnosed over 30 years from 1974 to 2003 among 16 million adults. During this time, the incidence rate of cancers known as gliomas increased gradually by 0.5% per year among men and by 0.2% per year among women.

For cancers known as meningioma, the incidence rate increased by 0.8% among men and, after the early 1990’s, by 3.8% among women, BBC News reported.

The researchers say the larger meningioma increase in women is due to the greater age of the women in this group.
Despite finding no increased risk for 10 years of cell phone use in Nordic countries, researchers say the cell phone-cancer issue is far from settled.

Doubts remain

A lack of correlation in these countries or elsewhere … doesn’t clear the air of doubt—even in the researchers’ minds. “The scientific literature is unsettled right now about the association between mobile phones and brain tumors,” says Isabelle Deltour, the study’s lead author.

Deltour says much of the uncertainty is due to the lack of a general understanding about brain tumors and the fact that some tumors take longer than 10 years to develop.

However, the work will add to a growing body of knowledge as researchers continue to investigate any potential link between cell phones and cancer.

A long-term international analysis known as INTERPHONE is due out soon and will add even more data to the investigation.