Authors
Ken Karipidis
Dan Baaken
Tom Loney
Maria Blettner
Rohan Mate
Chris Brzozek
Mark Elwood
Clement Narh
Nicola Orsini
Martin Röösli
Marilia Silva Paulo
Susanna Lagorio
Institutions
Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA), Australia
Federal Office for Radiation Protection (BfS), Germany
Mohammed Bin Rashid University of Medicine and Health Sciences, United Arab Emirates
University of Mainz, Germany
University of Auckland, New Zealand
University of Health and Allied Sciences, Ghana
Karolinska Institutet, Sweden
University of Basel, Switzerland
Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal
National Institute of Health (Istituto Superiore di Sanità), Italy
Journal
Environment International
Background
The World Health Organization is currently preparing an updated assessment on the health effects from radio wave exposure. That assessment, which will be published as an Environmental Health Criterion Monograph, will draw on this systematic review and others that have been commissioned by the World Health Organization. This systematic review considered all cancers other than brain and other head tumours, which were assessed in an earlier systematic review. If exposure to radio waves is found to increase the risk of cancer, then this could have serious public health consequences and may require a revision of the international safety limits.
Method
This systematic review considered all the available human observational studies on all cancers except brain and other head tumours. In the initial literature search, 5,060 records were identified. Most studies did not meet the inclusion criteria due to having poor study design or there was inadequate assessment of the radio wave exposure. In the end, 26 articles were included in the final analysis by the systematic review authors. While all the available evidence on the association between radio waves and various cancers was considered, there was only enough research to perform a proper analysis on the association with leukaemia, lymphoma, thyroid and oral cavity cancers.
Conclusion
This systematic review found no association with radio wave exposure and various cancers including leukemia, lymphoma, thyroid and oral cavity cancers. Most of the studies considered in this systematic review were found to have low certainty evidence because there were not enough results to validate the findings in each of the papers.
To improve the confidence in these results, more research needs to be undertaken that looks at the association between these cancers and radio waves from mobile phones, mobile phone towers and occupational exposure.
You can access this systematic review online at Environment International.
