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Exposure
to power frequency electric fields and the risk of childhood cancer in the UK
Skinner
J, Mee TJ, Blackwell RP, Maslanyj MP, Simpson J, Allen SG, Day NE
Strangeways
Research Laboratory, University of Cambridge, Wort's Causeway, Cambridge CB1
8RN, UK
The
United Kingdom Childhood Cancer Study, a population-based case-control study
covering the whole of Great Britain, incorporated a pilot study measuring
electric fields.
Measurements were made in the homes of 473 children who were diagnosed with a
malignant neoplasm between 1992 and 1996 and who were aged 0-14 at diagnosis,
together with 453 controls matched on age, sex and geographical location.
Exposure assessments comprised resultant spot measurements in the child's
bedroom and the family living-room.
Temporal stability of bedroom fields was investigated through continuous logging
of the 48-h vertical component at the child's bedside supported by repeat spot
measurements.
The principal exposure metric used was the mean of the pillow and bed centre
measurements.
For the 273 cases and 276 controls with fully validated measures, comparing
those with a measured electric field exposure >/=20 V m(-1) to those in a
reference category of exposure <10 V m(-1), odds ratios of 1.31 (95%
confidence interval 0.68-2.54) for acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, 1.32 (95%
confidence interval 0.73-2.39) for total leukaemia, 2.12 (95% confidence
interval 0.78-5.78) for central nervous system cancers and 1.26 (95% confidence
interval 0.77-2.07) for all malignancies were obtained.
When considering the 426 cases and 419 controls with no invalid measures, the
corresponding odds ratios were 0.86 (95% confidence interval 0.49-1.51) for
acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, 0.93 (95% confidence interval 0.56-1.54) for
total leukaemia, 1.43 (95% confidence interval 0.68-3.02) for central nervous
system cancers and 0.90 (95% confidence interval 0.59-1.35) for all
malignancies.
With exposure modelled as a continuous variable, odds ratios for an increase in
the principal metric of 10 V m(-1) were close to unity for all disease
categories, never differing significantly from one.
Copyright 2002 Cancer Research UK
PMID:
12439715 [PubMed - in process]
Source:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12439715&dopt=Abstract
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