Danish researchers have found no support for Lennart Hardell and Kjell Hansson Mild’s contention that mobile phones increase the risk of acoustic neuromas. A team led by Christoffer Johansen of the Danish Cancer Society in Copenhagen compared the histories of 106 cases of acoustic neuromas, benign tumors of the cranial nerve, with those of 212 controls. There was no elevated rate of cancer, even among those who had used a cell phone for ten years or more. Last year, Hardell of Sweden’s Orebro Medical Center reported that users of analog phones had a more than fourfold increased risk of developing acoustic neuromas (see MWN, M/A03). “The main result of this study is in line with the majority of epidemiologic findings reported so far,” Johansen states in the February 1 issue of the American Journal of Epidemiology. This is the first published finding of the Interphone study, in which researchers from 14 countries are investigating possible cancer risks posed by mobile telephones. The Interphone study is being coordinated by Elisabeth Cardis of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in Lyon, France (see MWN, J/F98, S/O98 and M/A00). The U.S. is not participating in the Interphone study.
