Abstracts

Rationale: Mobile or cellular phones are now an integral part of modern telecommunications. The widespread use of mobile phones has given rise to concern about the potential influences of electromagnetic fields on human health. Some examples of non-thermal effects described in the literature include modifications of sleep patterns, increase in blood pressure, and effects on cognitive function. Previous studies in rat models of epilepsy have shown seizure induction and changes in gene expression in certain brain areas. We wished to investigate the effect of mobile phone use in a long term video EEG monitoring unit and to determine if mobile phone use alters the presence of epileptic activity, which to our knowledge has not been investigated previously.Methods: Patients were recruited prospectively into this study. Only the first day of recording was analyzed. The patients were not told to use their mobile phones in a specific way, but to use them as they wish. The EEG was analyzed 15 minutes before and after the use of the mobile phone, and also during the duration of mobile phone use. The video recording was scanned manually to determine when the patient used the mobile phone.Results: Eleven patients were recruited into this study. One patient did not use her mobile phone, therefore only ten patients were further analyzed, 6 being female and 4 male, with a mean age of 36. 8 years (range 15-62). The average number of times the phone was used was 4.2 (range 1-7 times), with an average duration of use of 118.7 seconds (range 15-436 seconds). The phones used included four different brands. The patients analyzed were found to have idiopathic generalized epilepsy (one patient), focal-onset epilepsy (six patients) with or without secondary generalization, recurrent syncopal episodes (two patients, under investigation to exclude epilepsy), and one patient with unclassifiable seizure disorder. No new appearance of epileptiform activity was noted in any of the above patients during mobile phone use. Nine of the 10 patients did not show any abnormalities immediately before or after phone use. One patient showed focal irregular delta wave activity which did not change during phone use. Five of the 10 patients showed EEG abnormalities elsewhere in their recording, including focal spikes, polyspikes or sharp waves, focal slow waves or bifrontal fast activity. Conclusions: Mobile phone use has not been found to increase or alter ongoing epileptiform activity in humans.