No association between the use of cellular or cordless telephones and salivary gland tumours

Aim: To investigate the association between the use of cellular or cordless telephones and the risk for salivary gland tumours. Methods: Cases were assessed from the six regional cancer registries in Sweden. Four controls matched for sex and age in five year age groups were selected for each case. A total of 293 living cases and 1172 controls were included. Results: There were 267 (91%) participating cases and 1053 (90%) controls. Overall no significantly increased risk was found. Odds ratios were 0.92 (95% CI 0.58 to 1.44) for use of analogue phones, 1.01 (95% CI 0.68 to 1.50) for use of digital phones, and 0.99 ( 95% CI 0.68 to 1.43) for use of cordless phones. Similar results were found for different salivary gland localisations. No effect of tumour induction period or latency was seen, although few subjects reported use for more than 10 years. Conclusions: No association between the use of cellular or cordless phones and salivary gland tumours was found, although this study does not permit conclusions for long term heavy use.