Schuz J, Bohler E, Schlehofer B, Berg K, et al. (2006b)

This study was part of the German component of the Interphone study. It was designed to explore the relationship between exposure to RFR emitted from the base stations of Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications (DECT) cordless phones and the risk of brain tumour.

A case-control study included 747 cases of glioma or meningioma and 1494 matched controls. The exposure was the presence of a base station of a DECT cordless phone close to the subject’s bed. These devices operate with 250 mW maximum output power, and continuously emit pulsed RF electromagnetic fields irrespective of the handset being in operation or not. Power densities of between 4 and 170 mW/m² have been measured for distances up to 3 metres from the base station.

Face-to-face interviews were conducted with the subjects.

For persons who definitively had a DECT cordless phone, the odds ratio for glioma was 0.5 and for meningioma was 1.1. However, the number of subjects was small e.g. for glioma cases only 3 cases and 13 cases were exposed. Even when “possibly” exposed was combined with “definitively” the numbers were 8 cases and 26 controls. In this combined category , the odds ratio 0.82 for glioma and 0.83 for meningioma.