Page 31 - Contributed Paper Session (CPS) - Volume 6

CPS1483 Ken Karipidis et. al

Mobile phone use and incidence of brain tumour
1
1
Ken Karipidis , Mark Elwood , Geza Benke , Masoumeh Sanagou , Lydiawati
2
3
Tjong , Rodney J. Croft 4,5,6
1
1 Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency
2 School of Population Health, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand
3 School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Monash University, VIC, Australia
4 Australian Centre for Electromagnetic Bioeffects Research
5 Illawarra Health and Medical Research Institute
6 University of Wollongong, NSW, Australia

Abstract
The incidence time trends of brain tumour in Australia were examined and the
influence of improved diagnostic technologies and increase in mobile phone
use on the incidence of brain tumours were identified. In a population based
ecological study we examined trends of brain tumour over the periods 1982-
1992, 1993-2002 and 2003-2013, using National Australian incidence
registration data on primary cancers of the brain diagnosed between 1982 and
2013. We compared the observed incidence during the period of substantial
mobile phone use (2003-2013) with predicted (modelled) incidence for the
same period by applying various relative risks, latency periods and mobile
phone use scenarios. The study included 16,825 eligible brain cancer cases
aged 20 to 59 from all of Australia (10,083 males and 6,742 females). The main
outcome measure was the Annual Percentage Change (APC) in brain tumour
incidence based on Poisson regression analysis. The overall brain tumour rates
remained stable during all three periods. There was an increase in
glioblastoma during 1993-2002 (APC = 2.3, 95% Confidence Interval = 0.8-3.7)
which was likely due to advances in diagnosis due to increases in the use of
MRI during that period. There were no increases in any brain tumour types or
sub-types during the period of substantial mobile phone use from 2003-2013.
During that period there was also no increase in glioma of the temporal lobe
(0.5, -1.3-2.3), which is the location most exposed when using a mobile phone.
Predicted incidence rates were higher than the observed rates for latency
periods up to 15 years. In Australia, there has been no increase in any brain
tumour that can be attributed to mobile phone use.

Keywords
Poisson regression; brain tumour; mobile phone use

20 | I S I W S C 2 0 1 9