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EMR Literature Survey - April 2009
By: Khurana VG
Published in: Surg Neurol. 2009 Mar 26. [Epub ahead of print]
Review of the epidemiological evidence for a possible association between long-term mobile phone use and the risk of developing brain tumour. The review includes a meta-analysis of the long-term epidemiological data as well as a brief overview of mobile phone technology and a discussion of laboratory data, biological mechanisms, and brain tumour incidence. The results of the meta-analysis indicate that using a mobile phone for 10 years or more nearly doubles the risk of being diagnosed with certain brain tumours (glioma and acoustic neuroma) on the same ("ipsilateral") side of the head as that preferred for mobile phone use. No consistent pattern of an increased risk for meningioma was found. The authors conclude that there is adequate epidemiological evidence to suggest a link between prolonged mobile phone use and the development of an ipsilateral brain tumour.
The meta-analysis in this review was performed by Hardell et al (2009) in a paper which was presented in the March 2009 literature update (available at http://www.arpansa.gov.au/RadiationProtection/EMR/literature/march09.cfm). The meta-analysis includes case-control studies, mostly from the Hardell group in Sweden and the Interphone study group, investigating long-term mobile phone use and the association with certain head and neck tumours.
The INTERPHONE project is coordinated by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), an agency of the World Health Organisation (WHO). Further information on the project is available from the IARC website at http://www.iarc.fr/en/research-groups/RAD/RCAd.html. An update on the INTERPHONE studies that have been published to date is available at: http://www.iarc.fr/en/research-groups/RAD/Interphone8oct08.pdf
Another recent Australian review of the epidemiological literature on the use of mobile phones (and mobile phone-related technologies), and head and neck tumours by Croft et al (2009) was presented in the February 2009 literature update (available at http://www.arpansa.gov.au/RadiationProtection/EMR/literature/february09.cfm). However, unlike the conclusions made by the Khurana review, Croft et al conclude that although there have been individual reports of associations between mobile phone use and brain tumours, this research is not consistent and on balance does not provide evidence of an association. Croft et al similar to Khurana et al point out that there are reports of small associations between mobile phone use ipsilateral to the tumour for greater than 10 years, for both acoustic neuroma and glioma, but they argue that these results are especially prone to recall bias.
By: Santini MT et al
Published in: Int J Radiat Biol. 2009 Apr;85(4):294-313.
Review of in vitro research into the impact of extremely low frequency (ELF) electromagnetic fields on living systems. In particular, selected studies examining the role of these fields in cancer, their effects on immune and nerve cells, and the positive influence of these ELF fields on bone and nerve cells, wound healing and ischemia/reperfusion injury are explored. The authors conclude that the literature indicates that there is still no general agreement on the exact biological detrimental effects of ELF fields, on the physical mechanisms that may be behind these effects or on the extent to which these effects may be harmful to humans. However the authors also note that any effects seen by ELF fields on biological systems should not be ignored when evaluating the possible risk to humans and, consequently, in passing appropriate legislation to safeguard both the general public and occupationally exposed workers.
By: Viel JF et al
Published in: Occup Environ Med. 2009 Mar 30. [Epub ahead of print]
Study characterising the distribution of residential exposure to radiofrequency (RF) radiation from antennas using personal exposure meters. Despite numerous limiting factors entailing a high variability in RF exposure assessment, but owing to a sound statistical technique, the authors found that exposures from GSM and DCS base stations increase with distance in the near source zone, to a maximum where the main beam intersects the ground.
By: Morgan LL
Published in: Pathophysiology. 2009 Apr 6. [Epub ahead of print]
Review of early epidemiological mobile phone studies (where exposure duration was short) as well as two sets of more recent studies (with longer exposure duration): the Interphone studies and the Swedish studies led by Dr. Lennart Hardell. The author points out the differing conclusions of the recent studies. With four exceptions the Interphone studies found no increased risk of brain tumors from mobile phone use, while the Swedish studies reported numerous findings of significant increased brain tumor risk from mobile and cordless phone use. The author identifies design flaws in the recent studies and concludes that the data from the Swedish studies are consistent with what would be expected if mobile phone use were a risk for brain tumors, while the Interphone studies data are incredulous.
By: Narayanan et al.
Published in: Clinics. 2009 Jun;64(3):231-4
Study investigating the effects of GSM (900/1800 MHz) mobile phone exposure on the spatial memory performance of male Wistar rats. The authors report that mobile phone exposure affected the acquisition of learned responses in Wistar rats. They conclude that the results indicate poor spatial navigation and the object place configurations of the phone-exposed animals.
The full paper is available at http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1807-59322009000300014&lng=en&nrm=iso&tlng=en
By: Landgrebe M et al
Published in: PLoS ONE. 2009;4(3):e5026
Case-control study investigating the relationship between exposure to electromagnetic fields, electromagnetic hypersensitivity and tinnitus. Tinnitus occurrence and severity were assessed by questionnaires in 89 electromagnetic hypersensitive patients and 107 controls matched for age, gender, living surroundings and workplace. Tinnitus was significantly more frequent in the electromagnetic hypersensitive group whereas tinnitus duration and severity did not differ between groups. The authors conclude that the results indicate that tinnitus is associated with subjective electromagnetic hypersensitivity.
The full paper is available at http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pubmed&pubmedid=19325894
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