Living near cell phone tower doesn't raise childhood cancer risk

Young children of women who, during pregnancy, lived near cell phone towers don't have a higher risk of cancer, a study has found.

Researchers from Imperial College London reviewed information on almost 7,000 children younger than 5, including 1,397 with cancer. They found no link between the mother's exposure during pregnancy to a cell phone tower and the risk of cancers including leukemia and brain tumors, according to the study published in the British Medical Journal.

The study is the largest of its kind, and the findings should put any reports of cancer clusters around cell phone towers into context, the researchers wrote. Doctors should tell patients not to worry about living near such towers, said John Bithell, an honorary research fellow with the Childhood Cancer Research Group at the University of Oxford.