Comments regarding: "Occupational exposure to high-frequency electromagnetic fields and brain tumor risk in the INTEROCC study: An individualized assessment approach"

Abstract

This commentary addresses the paper by Vila et al. entitled "Occupational exposure to high-frequency electromagnetic fields and brain tumor risk in the INTEROCC study: An individualized assessment approach" that is published in Environment International. The authors have examined the link between occupational exposures to radiofrequency (RF) and intermediate frequency (IF) electromagnetic fields (EMF) and glioma and meningioma brain tumor risk in the INTEROCC multinational population-based case-control study. This study showed no clear association with exposure to RF or IF EMFs and the risk of glioma or meningioma brain tumors. Recent studies show that in many cases there are large errors and/or major shortcomings in the studies claiming no link between mobile phone and brain cancer. Although the paper by Vila et al. is well-structured and can be considered as a significant contribution to this field, there are several items that merit further attention and are not fully addressed. These include the selection bias, confounding factors other than age, sex, region and country, and criteria used in this study for considering exposures as occupational.

Keywords: Brain cancer; Electromagnetic fields (EMF); INTEROCC study; Occupational exposure.