Skip Navigation


American Journal of Epidemiology Advance Access originally published online on October 3, 2008
American Journal of Epidemiology 2008 168(10):1169-1178; doi:10.1093/aje/kwn230
This Article
Right arrow Full Text Freely available
Right arrow FREE Full Text (PDF) Freely available
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
168/10/1169    most recent
kwn230v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow Search for citing articles in:
ISI Web of Science (1)
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Disclaimer
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Merzenich, H.
Right arrow Articles by Schüz, J.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Merzenich, H.
Right arrow Articles by Schüz, J.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

American Journal of Epidemiology © The Author 2008. Published by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org.

ORIGINAL CONTRIBUTIONS

Childhood Leukemia in Relation to Radio Frequency Electromagnetic Fields in the Vicinity of TV and Radio Broadcast Transmitters

Hiltrud Merzenich, Sven Schmiedel, Sabrina Bennack, Hauke Brüggemeyer, Johannes Philipp, Maria Blettner and Joachim Schüz

Correspondence to Dr. Hiltrud Merzenich, Institute of Medical Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Informatics, University Mainz, 55101 Mainz, Germany (e-mail: merzenich{at}imbei.uni-mainz.de).

Received for publication February 27, 2008. Accepted for publication July 7, 2008.

A case-control study of radio frequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMFs) and childhood leukemia was conducted in West Germany. The study region included municipalities near high-power radio and TV broadcast towers, including 16 amplitude-modulated and 8 frequency-modulated transmitters. Cases were aged 0–14 years, were diagnosed with leukemia between 1984 and 2003, and were registered at the German Childhood Cancer Registry. Three age-, gender-, and transmitter-area-matched controls per case were drawn randomly from population registries. The analysis included 1,959 cases and 5,848 controls. Individual exposure to RF-EMFs 1 year before diagnosis was estimated with a field strength prediction program. Considering total RF-EMFs, the odds ratio derived from conditional logistic regression analysis for all types of leukemia was 0.86 (95% confidence interval: 0.67, 1.11) when upper (≥95%/0.701 V/m) and lower (<90%/0.504 V/m) quantiles of the RF-EMF distribution were compared. An analysis of amplitude-modulated and frequency-modulated transmitters separately did not show increased risks of leukemia. The odds ratio for all types of leukemia was 1.04 (95% confidence interval: 0.65, 1.67) among children living within 2 km of the nearest broadcast transmitter compared with those living at a distance of 10–<15 km. The data did not show any elevated risks of childhood leukemia associated with RF-EMFs.

child; electromagnetic fields; leukemia; radiation, radio; television

Abbreviations: AM, amplitude modulated; CI, confidence interval; FM, frequency modulated; ICCC, International Classification of Childhood Cancer; RF-EMF, radio frequency electromagnetic field


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 Occup. Environ. Med.Home page
J F Viel, S Clerc, C Barrera, R Rymzhanova, M Moissonnier, M Hours, and E Cardis
Residential exposure to radiofrequency fields from mobile phone base stations, and broadcast transmitters: a population-based survey with personal meter
Occup. Environ. Med., August 1, 2009; 66(8): 550 - 556.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]


Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.