Auteurs
Baumgardt-Elms C, Ahrens W, Bromen K, Boikat U, et al. (2002)

There have been several other studies of testicular cancer and EMF fields, with inconclusive results. The authors carried out a case-control study to examine this association. They interviewed 269 men from 5 German regions with testicular cancer (76% participation rate). Controls, matched by age and region, were contacted through regional registries, and 918 (57% participation) were interviewed. However, 121 controls could not be matched to cases, so that 797 controls were left for analysis.

The questionnaire included a section to assess exposure to different categories of EMF fields in the workplace. Two of these referred to radiofrequencies - "working near radiofrequency emitters", and "working near radar units". An expert assessment of job tasks was performed by two of the authors, who assessed 114 job tasks blinded for the case-control status. The risk of developing testicular cancer for a particular exposure was estimated according to whether a man had ever worked in a particular exposure situation, and analyses were also done by duration of exposures and by distance to the source.

There were no excess risks for cases reported to have ever worked near EMF fields. In particular, the odds ratio for radiofrequency emitters was 0.9, and for radar units was 1.0. The results for the weighted exposures did not differ substantially.

The authors concluded that EMF exposure in the workplace does not seem to be a relevant risk factor for testicular cancer in their study.