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See Latest ArticlesMobile Phone Use and Risk of Tumors: A Meta-Analysis
Journal of Clinical Oncology, 10/20/09
Myung S–K et al. – The current study found that there is possible evidence linking mobile phone use to an increased risk of tumors from a meta–analysis of low–biased case–control studies. Prospective cohort studies providing a higher level of evidence are needed.
Seung-Kwon Myung, 10/20/09
| Unlike the previous meta-analyses on this topic, we found that there is a big difference in the findings between Hardell et al's studies and Interphone studies (coordinated by the IARC's protocol), and it is attributable to the methodological quality of the study, especially blinding and non-response rates. As for blinding, in research there is a particular risk of expectation influencing findings, most obviously when there is some subjectivity in assessment, leading to biased results. Blinding (sometimes called masking) is used to try to eliminate such bias. In case-control studies, an interviewer should not know whether the subject participating in a study is a case or a control in order to avoid information bias (subjectivity in assessment). Therefore, blinding is one of the important items in quality assessment of case-control studies. In our study, only 8 out of all 23 studies, which are mostly Hardell et al’s ones, used the blind method during an interview in which the important information including mobile phone use and other factors was collected. As for non-response rates, all the INTERPHONE studies had a remarkable difference in non-response rates between cases and controls, whereas most of the Hardell et al studies (5 out of 7 studies) had no significant difference. We think this difference in non-response rated between cases and controls could lead to biased results, so we could not support the findings from the INTERPHONE studies. One interesting finding is that the Interphone studies were partly supported by the Mobile Manufacturers Forum and the Global System for Mobile Communication Association (GSM association), whereas Hardell et al's studies were independent of mobile phone industry. Although it is possible that some influence by the mobile industry may have affected the study design and skewed the results, we are not sure of it because the Interphone studies declared in their papers that provision of funds was governed by the agreements that guaranteed complete scientific independence from the mobile industry. Anyway, for human beings' health, we will have to find out the truth regarding the relationship between mobile phone use and tumor risk via further studies having a higher level of evidence, such as prospective cohort study. |
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