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Mobile phones and head tumours. The discrepancies in cause-effect relationships in the epidemiological studies - how do they arise?

BACKGROUND: Whether or not there is a relationship between use of mobile phones (analogue and digital cellulars, and cordless) and head tumour risk (brain tumours, acoustic neuromas, and salivary gland tumours) is still a matter of debate; progress requires a critical analysis of the methodological...

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Autores principales: Levis, Angelo G, Minicuci, Nadia, Ricci, Paolo, Gennaro, Valerio, Garbisa, Spiridione
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2011
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3146917/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21679472
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1476-069X-10-59
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author Levis, Angelo G
Minicuci, Nadia
Ricci, Paolo
Gennaro, Valerio
Garbisa, Spiridione
author_facet Levis, Angelo G
Minicuci, Nadia
Ricci, Paolo
Gennaro, Valerio
Garbisa, Spiridione
author_sort Levis, Angelo G
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Whether or not there is a relationship between use of mobile phones (analogue and digital cellulars, and cordless) and head tumour risk (brain tumours, acoustic neuromas, and salivary gland tumours) is still a matter of debate; progress requires a critical analysis of the methodological elements necessary for an impartial evaluation of contradictory studies. METHODS: A close examination of the protocols and results from all case-control and cohort studies, pooled- and meta-analyses on head tumour risk for mobile phone users was carried out, and for each study the elements necessary for evaluating its reliability were identified. In addition, new meta-analyses of the literature data were undertaken. These were limited to subjects with mobile phone latency time compatible with the progression of the examined tumours, and with analysis of the laterality of head tumour localisation corresponding to the habitual laterality of mobile phone use. RESULTS: Blind protocols, free from errors, bias, and financial conditioning factors, give positive results that reveal a cause-effect relationship between long-term mobile phone use or latency and statistically significant increase of ipsilateral head tumour risk, with biological plausibility. Non-blind protocols, which instead are affected by errors, bias, and financial conditioning factors, give negative results with systematic underestimate of such risk. However, also in these studies a statistically significant increase in risk of ipsilateral head tumours is quite common after more than 10 years of mobile phone use or latency. The meta-analyses, our included, examining only data on ipsilateral tumours in subjects using mobile phones since or for at least 10 years, show large and statistically significant increases in risk of ipsilateral brain gliomas and acoustic neuromas. CONCLUSIONS: Our analysis of the literature studies and of the results from meta-analyses of the significant data alone shows an almost doubling of the risk of head tumours induced by long-term mobile phone use or latency.
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spelling pubmed-31469172011-07-31 Mobile phones and head tumours. The discrepancies in cause-effect relationships in the epidemiological studies - how do they arise? Levis, Angelo G Minicuci, Nadia Ricci, Paolo Gennaro, Valerio Garbisa, Spiridione Environ Health Research BACKGROUND: Whether or not there is a relationship between use of mobile phones (analogue and digital cellulars, and cordless) and head tumour risk (brain tumours, acoustic neuromas, and salivary gland tumours) is still a matter of debate; progress requires a critical analysis of the methodological elements necessary for an impartial evaluation of contradictory studies. METHODS: A close examination of the protocols and results from all case-control and cohort studies, pooled- and meta-analyses on head tumour risk for mobile phone users was carried out, and for each study the elements necessary for evaluating its reliability were identified. In addition, new meta-analyses of the literature data were undertaken. These were limited to subjects with mobile phone latency time compatible with the progression of the examined tumours, and with analysis of the laterality of head tumour localisation corresponding to the habitual laterality of mobile phone use. RESULTS: Blind protocols, free from errors, bias, and financial conditioning factors, give positive results that reveal a cause-effect relationship between long-term mobile phone use or latency and statistically significant increase of ipsilateral head tumour risk, with biological plausibility. Non-blind protocols, which instead are affected by errors, bias, and financial conditioning factors, give negative results with systematic underestimate of such risk. However, also in these studies a statistically significant increase in risk of ipsilateral head tumours is quite common after more than 10 years of mobile phone use or latency. The meta-analyses, our included, examining only data on ipsilateral tumours in subjects using mobile phones since or for at least 10 years, show large and statistically significant increases in risk of ipsilateral brain gliomas and acoustic neuromas. CONCLUSIONS: Our analysis of the literature studies and of the results from meta-analyses of the significant data alone shows an almost doubling of the risk of head tumours induced by long-term mobile phone use or latency. BioMed Central 2011-06-17 /pmc/articles/PMC3146917/ /pubmed/21679472 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1476-069X-10-59 Text en Copyright ©2011 Levis et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research
Levis, Angelo G
Minicuci, Nadia
Ricci, Paolo
Gennaro, Valerio
Garbisa, Spiridione
Mobile phones and head tumours. The discrepancies in cause-effect relationships in the epidemiological studies - how do they arise?
title Mobile phones and head tumours. The discrepancies in cause-effect relationships in the epidemiological studies - how do they arise?
title_full Mobile phones and head tumours. The discrepancies in cause-effect relationships in the epidemiological studies - how do they arise?
title_fullStr Mobile phones and head tumours. The discrepancies in cause-effect relationships in the epidemiological studies - how do they arise?
title_full_unstemmed Mobile phones and head tumours. The discrepancies in cause-effect relationships in the epidemiological studies - how do they arise?
title_short Mobile phones and head tumours. The discrepancies in cause-effect relationships in the epidemiological studies - how do they arise?
title_sort mobile phones and head tumours. the discrepancies in cause-effect relationships in the epidemiological studies - how do they arise?
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3146917/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21679472
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1476-069X-10-59
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