The first sentence of the question seems to implies already an answer. The evidence for the effects listed is conflicting and reproducible studies are very rare. The saame is true for epidemiological studies. The classification by the WHO has to be regarded as a precautionary measure and must not be taken as evidence for the carcinogenic action of microwaves. In any case, the carcinogenic potential - if exists at al - is much smaller than that of ionizingg radiations or a number of chemicakk compounds.

Juergen Kiefer, University of Giessen, Germany

Dear Devra, As I have reviewed and understand the concerns regarding cell phone use, the issue is highly controversial. The data for association is both poor and weak, and their are plenty of studies suggesting no association at all (granting, it is difficult to prove a negative). As I understand the WHO decision, they are acting on a desire to ere on the side of over-cautiousness from a public safety and protection standpoint. Tracking cell phone data can be done, but each additional variable has a cost. Since the association is not likely to rise to the importance as such proven prognostic impact variables as histology, extent of systemic disease, functional performance status, neurological symptoms, and number of metastatic brain tumors, and since even these proven variables did not allow clinical experts in the filed to very accurately predict patient outcome, Idoubt that adding this additional variable to a decision-making calculus is likely to improve it. Sincerely, M Linskey, University of CA, Irvine

I appreciate this response. But there are some important variables that are seldom considered when reviewing 'negative' studies. Just considered two of these: cell type and whether the exposure is to continuous or modulated RF. Regarding cell type, studies of relatively immature or stem cells consistently find positive impacts, while those of more mature fibroblasts show little effect. Studies of MCF7 cells recently report acceleration of growth with RF; studies of human glioma cells also show impacts on phosphorylation. When signal properties such as continuous vs modulated pulse is taken into account, there is evidence that modulated signals like those from cell phones do have an impact. I am deeply concerned that most scientists know so little about the complexities of exposure here that they regard the inconsistent findings as evidence that there's little biological impact. Instead, these inconsistent findings reflect two things. The genuine complexity of the phenomena--which is real and challenging; and the sophisticated efforts of industry to carry our "war-games" on the science--that I've documented in my book--Disconnect.

In the meantime, just as one would not give HRT to a post-menopausal woman recovering from ER+ breast cancer, I believe that exposures to potential glioma accelerating RF should also be avoided. This avoidance is not difficult to achieve, and indeed advice about safe distances can be found inside all smart phones today. . For the iPhone just go to settings/general/about/legal/rfexposure.

The WHO classification of 2B has also been given to DDT, jet fuel, some forms of air pollution and other toxic hazards for which governments have taken precautionary actions. Even where the relative risk may be quite small, as it is with particulate air pollution and the risk of lung cancer, because exposures are widespread they are taken quite seriously as a matter of policy. Exposures to RF are now universal. Gathering more information from those who already have GBM on their relative exposure histories could be useful per se.

One relevant paper showing a link between cellphone use and cancer is

Lennart Hardell, Michael Carlberg, Fredrik Söderqvist, Kjell Hansson Mild: "Case-control study of the association between malignant brain tumours diagnosed between 2007 and 2009 and mobile and cordless phone use", International Journal of Oncology, 2013.

It shows cancer risk increased by a factor of about 1.5 to 3 for long latencies, I think it is the first paper of its kind which ensured, rather brilliantly, that the results are not affected significantly by recall bias and the authors conclude that "These findings provide support for the hypothesis that RF-EMFs play a role both in the initiation and promotion stages of carcinogenesis." This supports your advice to keep the cellphone at a distance from the body. I do not know if those results can contribute to patients' prognosis.

The challenge now is for the Society of Neuro-Oncology to provide routine advice to patients about avoiding exposures to agents that could accelerate tumor growth.

I think that perhaps we might be confusing apples with oranges here. This paper is about poor ability of even so called "experts" to accurate predict prognosis in individuals (rather than populations of individuals), when they have metstatatic brain tumors from systemic cancer. All cell phone work deals with primary brain tumors which are not the subject of this study. While the discussion is interesting, it does not appear to be related to the article. ML

Good point. But I'm I think I respectfully disagree. The point I am trying to raise is that where there are already established malignancies of glial cells even with metastases, then it makes sense to provide simple precautionary advice to patients with these diseases. May I get in point out that cell phones actually Come with advice to use a headset for speaker phone. But I would simply urge that clinicians bring this to the attention of those who already have malignancies underway in their brains

Dear colleague,

I’ve just posted a paper on the subject - “Estimations of local thermal impact on living organisms irradiated by non-thermal microwaves” that gives clear physically based answer to the question: What does RF power first of all (before it “accelerates mesenchymal stem cell growth, impairs DNA repair, and interferes with apoptosis”… et cetra)? Let us try to look at the problem from a physical point of view. I believe that the physics of alive is the common physics. If it is true then RF power first of all affects the electric charges, currents and magnetic momentums. All abovementioned bioeffects are just long chain past sequences. We must print this fact in our minds to make true conclusions.

Best regards

Dear Vladimir Shatalov,

Your interesting paper shows, using differential equations of heat transfer, that relative temperature excess may occur in a small inclusion in the tissue if the tissue is inhomogeneous enough. I reached a similar conclusion using a different approach, see Michael Peleg: A Thermodynamic Perspective on the Interaction of Radio Frequency Radiation with Living Tissue, International Journal of Biophysics, April 2012.

I think the local temperature excess which you analyzed might lead some day to a mechanism of interaction but there are also other possible modes of interaction such as the single photon interaction with electron spins occurring in MASERs and investigated in C.D. Georgiou: Oxidative stress-induced biological damage by low-level EMFs: mechanisms of free radical pair electron spin-polarization and biochemical amplification , Eur. J. Oncol. – Library Vol. 5 2010

and probably related to Friedman J., Kraus S., Hauptman Y., Schiff Y., Seger R.: “Mechanism of short-term ERK activation by electro-magnetic fields at mobile phone frequencies” Biochem J. 2007; 405 (3):559-568

(And Mark Linskey is right; this is not very relevant to the original question about prognosis.)

Best regards

Dear Michael,

thank you very much for the references, it needs some time to read the papers.

I believe that any suggested mechanism of biological damage by low-level EMFs must be checked first with the non-alive samples. If any effect preposed does not work in the non-alive samples it must be refered as contraversial. Therefore the mechanism we are looking for has to be well established in common physics. That is my point of view at any publication on the subject.

Best regards

Dear Vladimir,

Yes, I think that the two possibilities we discussed are indeed compatible with established physics.

Best regards,

Michael