Mobile telephones and rates of brain cancer.

The risk of most primary brain cancers including gliomas and acoustic neuromas is unrelated to the use of mobile telephones in several studies. The long-term effects of mobile phones remain to be determined. An increased risk caused by short-term mobile phone use was reported for neuroepithelial tumors, a rare histologic subgroup of brain cancers that are characterized by neuronal features. We analyzed time trends in the age-adjusted incidence rate of adult neuronal cancers in the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results program from 1973 to 2002. The rates did not change during this period, despite the exponential increase in mobile phone subscriptions starting in 1984. These results indicate that mobile phone use is unrelated to the risk of neuronal cancers.