No link between mobile phone use, brain cancer: WHO-commissioned review

There is no link between using a mobile phone and developing brain cancer, according to a review of studies, which was commissioned by the World Health Organization (WHO).

An international team of researchers looked at more than 5,000 studies of which 63, published between 1994 to 2022, were included in the final analysis.

The team, led by Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA), found that even though the use of wireless technology has “massively” increased over the last two decades, cases of brain cancers have not risen.

The analysis, “the most comprehensive and up-to-date assessment of the evidence to date”, is published in the journal Environment International.

In May 2011, International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) — the WHO’s cancer agency — classified exposure to radio waves as “possibly carcinogenic to humans”, based on an increased risk for glioma, a malignant type of brain cancer, associated with wireless phone use. Mobile phones use radio waves for communication.

However, the classification was “largely based on limited evidence from human observational studies”, according to the researchers.

“This systematic review of human observational studies is based on a much larger dataset compared to that examined by IARC, which also includes more recent and more comprehensive studies, so we can be more confident in the conclusion that exposure to radio waves from wireless technology is not a human health hazard,” lead researcher Ken Karipidis, Health Impact Assessment Assistant Director at ARPANSA, said.

The authors found that exposure to radio waves from mobile phones was not associated with an increased risk of glioma or other brain-related cancers such as meningioma, pituitary tumours and paediatric brain tumours.

They also called for studies that could look at the effects of 5G mobile networks.

“Given that wireless communications have only recently started to use (radio) frequencies above 6 (GHz) there are no epidemiological studies investigating 5G mobile networks directly as yet, but it is envisaged that future prospective cohort studies should cover this and other future planned technologies,” the authors wrote.