Workpackage 1

WP leader: Elisabeth Cardis, ISGlobal (former CREAL)

This WP incorporates two separate but complementary activities:

The overall scientific coordination of the project.
This WP lasts throughout the entire duration of the project. In consultation with the Project Board (WP leaders) as necessary, ISGlobal (former CREAL) maintains regular contact with all partners and monitors progress and difficulties and advises on modifications of approach if needed. More specifically, coordination includes: carrying out site visits to ensure the correct application of the study protocols, conducting conference calls, and leading meetings for fieldwork coordinators as well as for the entire Consortium.

Workshops were held to train interviewers from each study centre to administer the questionnaire. Interviewers conduct practice interviews and their performances are reviewed by the national fieldwork coordinators.

The conduct of the epidemiological study in all participating countries.
MOBI-Kids is a prospective multinational case-control study of brain tumours conducted in 15 countries: Australia, Austria, Canada, France, Germany, Greece, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, Spain, Taiwan and The Netherlands. Including a large number of countries is essential to recruit enough cases to have sufficient statistical power to detect an association between RF exposure and cancer risk, if it exists.

The study population consists of everyone (male and female) aged 10 to 24 who resides in the study regions. Cases are patients with an eligible diagnosis of a primary brain tumour, who are diagnosed during the study period in the study regions. MOBI-Kids staff schedule interviews as soon as possible after diagnosis to minimise the number of cases whose participation may be prevented by death or deteriorating health. Brain tumour cases are identified though contact with the relevant departments (neurosurgery, radiology, pathology, etc) of participating health institutions.

Controls are subjects who are operated for suspected appendicitis. This was chosen as appendicitis is common in all age ranges included in the study and not related to mobile telephone use or SES (socioeconomic status). Controls are individually matched to cases on age, sex, and region of residence. They are recruited in parallel to case identification.

All identified cases and controls are contacted, informed about the study, and given the opportunity to refuse to participate. For children under the age of 18 (or the country-specific legal age for transition to adulthood), parents/guardians provide written consent. For older participants, consent is provided from the subjects themselves. Consent requirements varies between centres, depending on local ethics committees.