West Indies Cricket Fans

LOS ANGELES — Cellphone users may be at increased risk for two types of rare cancers and should try to reduce exposure to energy emitted by the phones, according to a panel of 31 international scientists convened by an agency within the World Health Organization (WHO).

Studies have not shown definitively that cellphone use increases cancer risk, said the authors of the consensus statement issued Tuesday by the WHO. However, "limited" scientific evidence exists, they said, to suggest the radio-frequency energy released by cellphones may increase the risk of two types of cancers: glioma, a type of brain cancer, and acoustic neuroma, a tumor of the nerve that runs from the ear to the brain.

Both cancers are rare: In the United States, about 10,000 to 12,000 people develop a glioma each year and about 3,000 develop acoustic tumors. The elevated risk roughly doubles that risk after a decade of cellphone use, according to some studies. But the number of cellphone users worldwide — about 5 billion — means a potential cancer link should be taken seriously, said Dr. Jonathan Samet, chairman of the department of preventive medicine at the University of Southern California's Keck School of Medicine and chairman of the panel that issued the report.