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

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 (