D. Coste et al., ELECTROMAGNETIC-FIELDS AND CHILDHOOD-CANC ER - STATE OF RESEARCH IN EPIDEMIOLOGY, Revue d'epidemiologie et de sante publique, 44(1), 1996, pp. 80-92
Thirteen epidemiological studies of the relations between electromagne
tic fields and childhood cancers have been published. Eleven have show
n some associations between the presumed intensity of exposure to resi
dential magnetic fields and the childhood cancers incidence, either fo
r all cancers or for the 3 most frequent types (leukaemias, brain tumo
urs and lymphomas). These associations are nor often significant becau
se of the weak statistical power of these studies in relation with bot
h the low incidence of cancers in childhood, and specially of each par
ticular type, and the little number of subjects considered to be expos
ed at a high level exposure for residential magnetic fields. All these
studies fall in with the same difficulties, particularly for identifi
cation and assessment of the exposure to magnetic fields and for the m
anner to take into account all the potential confounders. So even sign
ificant associations do not imply their causality, all the more as the
carcinogenicity of extremely low frequency electromagnetic fields, al
though biologically conceivable, has never been experimentally proven.
Today it is impossible to claim or invalidate the influence of reside
ntial magnetic fields in the genesis of childhood cancer. Setting up o
f new epidemiological studies based on large number of cases issued fr
om population based registries and conducted with a best defined metho
dology seems to be highly desirable.