Effect of Occupational Exposure to Radar Radiation on Cancer Risk: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Introduction and Aims: Microwave radiation are one of the most growing environmental workplace factors that exposes too many workers in the various workplaces. Regard to concerns about cancer incidence in these workers and lack of systematic or meta-analytic studies about this object, so, we conducted a meta-analysis to acquire an understanding of the association between cancer risk and occupational exposure to radar radiation.Search Methods: A systematic search was carried out on case-control, cohort and clinical control trial studies that published in Cochrane Library, PubMed, ISI Web of Science, Scopus and Google scholar databases that accomplished from March ۲۰۱۷ to March ۲۰۱۸ and updated on ۳۰ September, ۲۰۱۸ in English and Persian articles without time limit in publication date. Keywords were selected based on PICO principle and collected from MeSH database. After removal of duplicated studied, taking into inclusion and exclusion criteria, the process of screening was carried out and data were extracted after preparation of full text of included articles. Article collection was completed by manual search on reference list of eligible studies. For quality assessment of included studies, Newcastle-Ottawa scale was used.Results: a total of ۵۳۳ studies were found in the first step of literature search, only ۶ were included with ۵۳,۰۰۸ sample size according to inclusion and exclusion criteria. Estimated pooled random effects size analysis showed no significant increasing effect of occupational exposure to radar radiation on mortality rate (MR=۰.۸۱, ۹۵%CI: ۰.۷۸, ۰.۸۳) and relative risk (RR=۰.۸۷, ۹۵%CI: ۰.۷۵, ۰.۹۹, P <۰.۰۰۰۱) of cancer with a significant heterogeneity between the selected studies.Conclusions: In conclusion, the results of this meta-analysis study have shown no significant increase in overall mortality ratio and cancer risk ratio from occupational exposure to radar frequency in workers. But, this results are not conclusive. As regards to some limitation such as few numbers of included studies, lack of data about exposure characterizations and demographic characterizations in this meta-analysis, this result is not certain and conclusive. It is recommended to conduct future studies.

کلیدواژه ها:

Occupational cancer ، occupational exposure ، Radar ، Cancer ، Neoplasm ، Meta-Analysis