Research

Project Title:
A case-control study of risk of brain tumours and acoustic neuroma in relation to use of mobile phones: South East England

Start Date:
February 2002

Expected Date of Completion:
July 2004

Cost:
£280,000

Principal Investigator:
Professor A.J. Swerdlow

Contact Details:
Institute of Cancer Research
Section of Epidemiology
Cotswold Road
Sutton
SM2 5NG

Project Team:
Ms Schoemaker, Institute of Cancer Research
Dr Houlston, Cancer Gene Cloning Laboratory, Institute of Cancer Research

Expertise:

Professor Swerdlow has worked on epidemiological studies of cancer aetiology for the past 20 years. Ms. Schoemaker holds MSc’s in radiation biology and medical statistics and has several years experience of working in radiation-related epidemiology. Dr Houlston is joint Director of the Cancer Gene Cloning Laboratory at the Institute of Cancer Research, has been involved in localisation and characterisation of a number of disease genes and has extensive experience of genetic epidemiology.

Approach:

This Project is a case-control study comparing mobile phone use and other radio-frequency radiation exposure, and in addition other potentially confounding exposures such as ionising radiation and genes, between cases (i.e. patients who have the study cancers) and controls (subjects who do not have these cancers). This project plans to recruit a 1000 brain tumour and acoustic neuroma patients and 1000 controls in the south-east of England. The brain tumour study will contribute to international combined analyses coordinated by the International Agency for Research on Cancer.

Potential Difficulties:

It is time consuming and expensive to identify, make contact with and interview patients of these studies, but we have considerable experience of so doing and with persistence these problems are overcome.

Importance:

To address the possibility that mobile phone exposure may cause cancers in man, it is essential to investigate whether risk of cancer is raised in human populations according to their phone exposure. This is what the study sets out to do for brain tumour and acoustic neuroma cancers for which the possibility of an association needs to be clarified.