Research

Project Title:
A case-control study of risk of leukaemia in relation to use of mobile phones

Start Date:
November 2002

Expected Date of Completion:
March 2009

Cost:
£960,000

Project Team:

Principal Investigator:

Professor A.J. Swerdlow

Contact Details:

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

Project Team:

Professor Greaves, Leukaemia Research Fund Centre, Institute of Cancer Research
Professor Linch, Department of Haematology, UCL Medical School

Expertise:

Professor Swerdlow has worked on epidemiological studies of cancer aetiology for the past 20 years. Professor Greaves has a long-established track record of research on the biology of leukaemia and has been director of the Leukaemia Research Fund Centre at the Institute of Cancer Research for 17 years. Professor Linch is a highly experienced academic haematologist and clinical oncologist who has been treating leukaemia for more than 20 years.

Approach:

The 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). The study plans to recruit 900 leukaemia patients and 900 controls, aged 18 to 59 years in the south-east of England.

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 this project sets out to do for leukaemia cancers for which the possibility of an association needs to be clarified.

Current status:

The Programme Management Committee (PMC) of the MTHR programme has agreed to a no-cost extension of this project.

A case-control study was conducted in the South East of England to investigate the potential relation of acute and non-lymphocytic leukaemia risk to mobile phone use. 808 cases with leukaemia incident during 2003-2009 at ages 18-59 years and 602 controls were interviewed in person about mobile phone use and other potentially aetiological (and hence potentially confounding) variables, and blood samples were taken for genetic analyses. The Principal Investigator, Professor Swerdlow, requested the extension to allow recruitment of patients who were diagnosed during the study period but only ascertained later by the study team, thus maximising completeness. Ascertainment and interviews of study subjects are now complete.

Analyses are being prepared for publication, investigating risks of leukaemia overall, and risks of subtypes of leukaemia, in relation to phone use variables such as years since first use, years of use, cumulative number of calls, cumulative hours of use, and digital/analogue phone use. At present, the statistical analysis of the data is nearing completion, and Professor Swerdlow has agreed a deadline of the 1st April 2010 for submission of his final report. In line with MTHR policy on the publication of work funded under the programme, Professor Swerdlow will then have up to 12 months in which to seek publication of the findings in the peer reviewed literature before the final report is published on the MTHR website.