The role of household electromagnetic fields in the development of mammary tumors in women: clinical case-record observations.

Background: The relationship between the exposure rates to household EMFs and incidences of mammary tumors has been studied in women based on the materials of the Edith Wolfson Medical Center, Israel.

Material/methods: 200,527 biopsy and surgery samples from a period of 26 years were analyzed. The material was divided into two groups: Group 1 included patients with breast tumors from 1978 to 1990 and Group 2 between 1991 and 2003.

Results: Breast tumors were found in 2824 women (1.4%). The highest number of tumors was seen in women aged 60 to 69 years. There were 1613 (57.1%) cases in Group 1 and 1211 (42.9%) cases in Group 2. The most frequent malignant cases were invasive ductal carcinomas (1473 of total 2824 cases). These were found in 777 women (52.7%) of Group 1 and 696 women (47.2%) of Group 2. The case records of these patients show that 181 (23.2%) women in Group 1 and 327 (46.9%) in Group 2 were regularly exposed to EMFs (mostly of personal computers) for at least 3 h a day. Despite the significant differences in the number of patients exposed to EMFs for 3 h/day in both groups (chi2=29.7 and p < 0.001), no correlation was found between durable exposure to EMFs and the number of women with malignant tumors in each group.

Conclusions: Results of our studies point to a low potential carcinogenic hazard of low-frequency EMFs.