Temporal and Other Exposure Aspects of Residential Magnetic Fields Measurement in Relation to Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia in Children: The National Cancer Institute Children's Cancer Group Study

Abstract

Case-control studies have used a variety of measurements to evaluate the relationship of children's exposure to magnetic fields (50 or 60 Hz) with childhood leukaemia and other childhood cancers. In the absence of knowledge about which exposure metrics may be biologically meaningful, studies during the past 10 years have often used time-weighted average (TWA) summaries of home measurements. Recently, other exposure metrics have been suggested, usually based on theoretical considerations or limited laboratory data. In this paper, the rationale and associated preliminary studies undertaken are described as well as feasibility and validity issues governing the choice of the primary magnetic field exposure assessment methods and summary metric used to estimate children's exposure in the National Cancer Institute/Children's Cancer Group (NCI/CCG) case-control study. Also provided are definitions and discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of the various exposure metrics used in exploratory analyses of the NCI/CCG measurement data. Exposure metrics evaluated include measures of central tendency (mean, median, 30th to 70th percentiles), peak exposures (90th and higher percentiles, peak values of the 24 h h measurements), and measurements of short-term temporal variability (rate of change). This report describes correlations of the various metrics with the time-weighted average for the 24 h period (TWA-24-h). Most of the metrics were found to be positively and highly correlated with TWA-24-h, but lower correlations of TWA-24-h with peak exposure and with rate of change were observed. To examine further the relation between TWA and alternative metrics, similar exploratory analysis should be considered for existing data sets and for forthcoming measurement investigations of residential magnetic fields and childhood leukaemia.