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The uncertainty about the relationship between the use of mobile phones (MPs: analogue and digital cellulars, and cordless) and the increase of head tumour risk can be solved by a critical analysis of the methodological elements of both the positive and the negative studies. Results by Hardell indicate a cause/effect relationship: exposures for or latencies from ≥ 10 years to MPs increase by up to 100% the risk of tumour on the same side of the head preferred for phone use (ipsilateral tumours) - which is the only one significantly irradiated - with statistical significance for brain gliomas, meningiomas and acoustic neuromas. On the contrary, studies published under the Interphone project and others produced negative results and are characterised by the substantial underestimation of the risk of tumour. However, also in the Interphone studies a clear and statistically significant increase of ipsilateral head tumours (gliomas, neuromas and parotid gland tumours) is quite common in people having used MPs since or for ≥ 10 years. And also the metaanalyses by Hardell and other Authors, including only the literature data on ipsilateral tumours in people having used MPs since or for ≥ 10 years - and so also part of the Interphone data - still show statistically significant increases of head tumours.

Human trophoblast cells were obtained from a term placenta and cultured through several stages. Using specific antibodies marked using an avidin biotin system and given the characteristic "invasiveness" of placental tissue, the Authors investigated the possible presence of those markers which have been found to be correlated with invasive and metastatic tumour cells. The positivity shown by cultured trophoblast cells towards laminin receptors and collagenase IV may have important implications which might explain the strange formation and maintenance of the human uteroplacental circulation in which embryonal tissue is in direct contact with maternal blood.

The aim of this study was to evaluate whether left ventricular hypertrophy in spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR) is accompanied by myocardial collagen quantitative and/or qualitative changes. 15 SHR and 20 control normotensive rats (WKR) of three months of age were used. At this age, hypertension has already caused a significant increase in the ratio of the ventricular mass to body weight (mg/g) in hypertensive animals (SHR: 5.11 +/- 0.21; WKR: 3.40 +/- 0.22; p less than 0.001). With respect to body mass, the amount of collagen elicited from the hydroxyproline concentration increases in SHR but remains percentually the same with respect to the biventricular mass. In SHR, changes in the amount of type-1 alpha chains and type-V alpha chains, and the presence of a low molecular weight collagenous fraction have been observed. Moreover, we have found an increase in the ratio of type-1 alpha 1 chains to type-1 alpha 2 chains. This change might be related to the appearance of a type-1 alpha 1 trymer. The presence of such a type-1 alpha trymer and of low molecular weight collagenous fractions may suggest the appearance of fetal collagenous isoforms in ventricular myocardium, due to the increased pressure load as well as to the increased turnover (an index of a remodelling activity of cardiac stroma). These changes might play a role in the transformation of myocardial viscoelastic properties in SHR with a progressive diastolic stiffness of the ventricular wall.