TY - JOUR
T1 - Childhood leukemia and 50 Hz magnetic fields
T2 - Findings from the Italian SETIL case-control study
AU - Salvan, Alberto
AU - Ranucci, Alessandra
AU - Lagorio, Susanna
AU - Magnani, Corrado
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
PY - 2015/2/16
Y1 - 2015/2/16
N2 - We report on an Italian case-control study on childhood leukemia and exposure to extremely low frequency magnetic fields (ELF-MF). Eligible for inclusion were 745 leukemia cases, aged 0–10 years at diagnosis in 1998–2001, and 1475 sex- and age-matched population controls. Parents of 683 cases and 1044 controls (92% vs. 71%) were interviewed. ELF-MF measurements (24–48 h), in the child’s bedroom of the dwelling inhabited one year before diagnosis, were available for 412 cases and 587 controls included in the main conditional regression analyses. The magnetic field induction was 0.04 μT on average (geometric mean), with 0.6% of cases and 1.6% of controls exposed to >0.3 μT. The impact of changes in the statistical model, exposure metric, and data-set restriction criteria was explored via sensitivity analyses. No exposure-disease association was observed in analyses based on continuous exposure, while analyses based on categorical variables were characterized by incoherent exposure-outcome relationships. In conclusion, our results may be affected by several sources of bias and they are noninformative at exposure levels > 0.3 μT. Nonetheless, the study may contribute to future meta- or pooled analyses. Furthermore, exposure levels among population controls are useful to estimate attributable risk.
AB - We report on an Italian case-control study on childhood leukemia and exposure to extremely low frequency magnetic fields (ELF-MF). Eligible for inclusion were 745 leukemia cases, aged 0–10 years at diagnosis in 1998–2001, and 1475 sex- and age-matched population controls. Parents of 683 cases and 1044 controls (92% vs. 71%) were interviewed. ELF-MF measurements (24–48 h), in the child’s bedroom of the dwelling inhabited one year before diagnosis, were available for 412 cases and 587 controls included in the main conditional regression analyses. The magnetic field induction was 0.04 μT on average (geometric mean), with 0.6% of cases and 1.6% of controls exposed to >0.3 μT. The impact of changes in the statistical model, exposure metric, and data-set restriction criteria was explored via sensitivity analyses. No exposure-disease association was observed in analyses based on continuous exposure, while analyses based on categorical variables were characterized by incoherent exposure-outcome relationships. In conclusion, our results may be affected by several sources of bias and they are noninformative at exposure levels > 0.3 μT. Nonetheless, the study may contribute to future meta- or pooled analyses. Furthermore, exposure levels among population controls are useful to estimate attributable risk.
KW - Acute lymphoblastic leukemia
KW - Case-control study
KW - Childhood
KW - Epidemiology
KW - Extremely low frequency (ELF) magnetic fields
KW - Leukemia
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84930654103&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3390/ijerph120202184
DO - 10.3390/ijerph120202184
M3 - Article
SN - 1661-7827
VL - 12
SP - 2184
EP - 2204
JO - International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
JF - International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
IS - 2
ER -