Abstract
Dramatic increase in hand‐held cellular telephone use since the 1980s and excess risk of lymphoproliferative malignancies associated with radio‐frequency radiation (RFR) exposures in epidemiological and experimental studies motivated assessment of cellular telephones within a comprehensive US case–control investigation of non‐Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL). A questionnaire ascertained cellular telephone use in 551 NHL cases and 462 frequency‐matched population controls. Compared to persons who had never used cellular telephones, risks were not increased among individuals whose lifetime use was fewer than 10 (odds ratio (OR) = 0.9, 95% confidence intervals (CI): 0.6, 1.3), 10–100 (OR = 1.0, 95 % CI: 0.7, 1.5) or more than 100 times (e.g., regular users, OR = 0.9, 95% CI: 0.6, 1.4). Among regular users compared to those who had never used hand‐held cellular telephones, risks of NHL were not significantly associated with minutes per week, duration, cumulative lifetime or year of first use, although NHL was non‐significantly higher in men who used cellular telephones for more than 8 years. Little evidence linked use of cellular telephones with total, diffuse large B‐cell lymphoma or follicular NHL. These findings must be interpreted in the context of less than 5% of the population reporting duration of use of 6 or more years or lifetime cumulative use of 200 or more hours. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.