Nearly 200,000 volunteers are slated to participate in a five-year study, to evaluate the risks of brain cancer, for long term users of the mobile phone .

Professor Lawrie Challis, an authority on mobile phone radiation, is in the final stage of discussion with the Department of Health and the mobile phone industry. If the talks are successful, the duo will contribute towards sponsorship of the study, which is expected to cost £3 million.

Earlier a European insight had suggested the risk of brain tumor as a possible fallout of using a mobile phone for more than ten years.

Prof Challis was quizzed about the possibility of the mobile phone causing as much damage like the cigarette; he was unequivocal in his answer, agreeing to it wholeheartedly. He said: "You find absolutely nothing for 10 years and then after that it starts to grow dramatically. It goes up 10 times. You look at what happened after the atomic bombs at Nagasaki, Hiroshima. You find again a long delay, nothing for 10 years. The same for asbestos. The fact that you don't see anything in 10 years is also more or less what you would expect if there is something happening. Because there is a hint and because the professional epidemiologists who I trust and who do this all the time feel there is a chance that this could be real, they can't rule out the possibility."