Congenital defects and electric bed heating in New York State: a register-based case-control study

Exposure to 60-cycle electromagnetic fields has been hypothesized to be a cause of childhood cancer and congenital defects. Because electric bed heaters are a major source of variation in electromagnetic field exposure in the population, the authors conducted a case-control study in 1988-1989 to examine the relations between congenital defects and the use of electric blankets and heated waterbeds. Cases were identified by the New York State Congenital Malformations Registry as babies with cleft palate (n = 121), cleft lip with or without cleft palate (n = 197), born in 1983-1984, and anencephalus and spina bifida (n = 224), born in 1983-1986, all to upstate New York residents. Controls were selected at random from birth registrations individually matched to cases by maternal race, age, home county, month of last menses, and child's sex. Information on periconceptional electric blanket and heated waterbed use as well as known and suspected risk factors for defects was obtained from questionnaires mailed to the mothers. Matched odds ratio estimates and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for electric blanket use relative to nonuse were 0.8 (95% CI 0.3-2.1) for cleft palate, 0.7 (95% CI 0.3-1.3) for cleft lip, and 0.9 (95% CI 0.5-1.6) for neural tube defects. The respective odds ratios for heated waterbed use were nearly identical to these. Adjustment for potential confounding factors (maternal education, vitamin use, smoking) and stratification by season of conception and bed heat control setting had no meaningful effect on odds ratios. These results suggest that 60-cycle fields do not cause neural tube and oral cleft defects.

Extranodal Ki-1 lymphoma in a renal transplant patient

THe Ki-1 (CD 30) antigen has been identified as a marker of a subset of large cell anaplastic non-Hodgkin's lymphoma that may have a more favourable prognosis. We describe an immunosuppressed renal transplant patient who developed primary extranodal large cell anaplastic Ki-1 lymphoma of T-cell phenotype confined to the sigmoid colon. The patient was treated with local resection of the sigmoid colon and reduction of immunosuppression and at two year follow-up remains free of recurrence. It is recognised that long term immunosuppression in post transplant patients increases the risk of certain malignancies. Localised gut lymphoma may be amenable to local resection as a curative procedure.