Authored By:
Carlberg M, Hedendahl L, Ahonen M, Koppel T, Hardell LThis is an ecological study that investigated the incidence of thyroid cancer and mobile phone use in Sweden and other Nordic countries. In Sweden, there was a statistically significant increase in thyroid cancer incidence in women during the period 1970-2013. The highest annual percentage change (APC) was found in the age group 20-39 during 2006-2013 (APC = +10.77%, 95% confidence interval, 95% CI = 5.75 -16.04%). In Nordic countries, there was also statistically significant increase in thyroid cancer incidence in women. The authors compared the thyroid cancer incidence data to the total duration of mobile phone calls made in the Nordic countries for the period 2001-2013. The authors hypothesised that radiofrequency (RF) exposure resulting from mobile phone use is a possible risk factor for thyroid cancer.
Published In:
BMC Cancer 2016; 16 (1): 426-Epidemiological investigations on RF exposure and thyroid cancer are scarce. There are more studies investigating the thyroid hormone function, which are mostly animal studies.
Although useful as a preliminary study to generate a hypothesis between a possible risk factor and outcome an ecological study cannot be used to establish a cause and effect association. This is because ecological studies have a number of limitations including that the observation or data collection is made at the population level and not at the individual level. Further studies will be required to test if there actually is an association between mobile phone use and thyroid cancer.
