School of Health Sciences, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia.
Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency, Melbourne, Australia.
J Expo Sci Environ Epidemiol. 2021 Jul;31(4):606-613. doi: 10.1038/s41370-021-00307-7. Epub 2021 Mar 16.
With the roll-out of new technologies such as 5G, there has been renewed community concern regarding the adequacy of research on possible health effects from associated radiofrequency radiation, mainly in the millimetre wave (MMW) band.
We conducted a meta-analysis of in vitro and in vivo studies investigating bioeffects of MMWs at low exposure levels.
We identified 107 in vitro and in vivo studies investigating MMWs and biological effects in which the power density employed has been below 100 W/m, which is below the current standards for occupational local exposures. Where possible, we estimated the magnitude of the principal effect reported or set this magnitude to zero in studies reporting no significant effects. We also estimated the quality of the studies, based on a methodology used in previous analyses.
We show a negative correlation between effect size and both power density and specific absorption rate. There was also a significant negative correlation between effect size and quality score. A multivariate analysis revealed that there is an increase in the effect size for certain biological systems being investigated and laboratories in which the work was carried out whilst the quality score for some of these tends to be low. We note that many of the studies were motivated by a desire to elucidate the possible mechanisms in therapeutic devices rather than assessing the safety of telecommunications systems. Finally, it appears that the presence or absence of modulation does not influence the reported effect size.
Many of the findings of this meta-analysis have not been reported before and have important implications for overall interpretation of in vitro and in vivo data. Overall, the results of this study do not confirm an association between low-level MMWs and biological effects.
随着 5G 等新技术的推出，社区重新关注与相关射频辐射可能对健康造成的影响的研究是否充分，主要是在毫米波 (MMW) 波段。
我们对研究毫米波低暴露水平生物效应的体外和体内研究进行了荟萃分析。
我们确定了 107 项研究，这些研究调查了毫米波和生物效应，其中使用的功率密度低于 100 W/m，低于职业局部暴露的现行标准。在可能的情况下，我们估计了报告的主要效应的大小，或者在报告没有显著效应的研究中将其设置为零。我们还根据以前的分析中使用的方法评估了研究的质量。
我们发现效应大小与功率密度和比吸收率呈负相关。效应大小与质量评分也呈显著负相关。多元分析表明，某些正在研究的生物系统的效应大小以及进行工作的实验室有所增加，而这些实验室的质量评分往往较低。我们注意到，许多研究的动机是阐明治疗设备中可能的机制，而不是评估电信系统的安全性。最后，似乎调制的存在与否并不影响报告的效应大小。
本荟萃分析的许多发现以前没有报道过，对整体解释体外和体内数据具有重要意义。总的来说，这项研究的结果并不证实低水平毫米波与生物效应之间存在关联。
