# WEB-011 — Skin injury and inflammation at high absorbed power at 26.5 GHz

Why this matters
Knowing the conditions that produce tissue injury is part of understanding an exposure. This carefully characterised experiment relates absorbed power to skin temperature and inflammation.

Id: WEB-011

Author: Ijima et al.

Full Authors: Etsuko Ijima; Akiko Nagai; Kun Li; Takashi Hikage; Naomi Kamizawa; Emi Hidaka; Yukina Tsuruta; Tatsuya Ishitake; Hiroshi Masuda

Year: 2025

Title: Histological and inflammatory effects of 26.5 GHz quasi-millimeter wave exposure on rat skin

Journal: Frontiers in public health

Citation: Etsuko Ijima; Akiko Nagai; Kun Li; Takashi Hikage; Naomi Kamizawa; Emi Hidaka; Yukina Tsuruta; Tatsuya Ishitake; Hiroshi Masuda. Histological and inflammatory effects of 26.5 GHz quasi-millimeter wave exposure on rat skin. Frontiers in public health. 2025. doi:10.3389/fpubh.2025.1580155.

Doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1580155

Pmid: 40589806

Topic: Skin injury and inflammation; Millimetre-wave thermal thresholds

Verification Group: Original text reviewed

Record Role: Original text reviewed

Featured: False

Exposure: 26.5 GHz dorsal-skin exposure; absorbed power density 0, 250, 370 or 500 W/m²; 18 min; terminal skin temperatures about 39.0, 42.4 and 44.8°C in exposed groups.

Design: Local rat-skin experiment; blinded histological scoring; inflammatory tissue/serum markers.

Finding: At 500 W/m², blistering, epidermal thickening and oedema accompanied elevated iNOS/Iba1; serum PGE₂ increased with dose.

Statistics: See reported finding and original tables; effect sizes not independently recalculated.

Boundary: High-level thermal injury regime. Lower exposures lacked distinct gross histological injury; serum TNF-α/IL-6 were undetectable. Not a study of ordinary network or scanner exposure.

Protection Question: Which exposure conditions and biological models reproduce this response, and what would establish its relevance to health?

Access: Original methods/results sections reviewed; no independent raw-data or supplement audit.

Locator: Original results/methods sections

Notice: Linked notice fields in retrieved Europe PMC/PubMed records checked 21 October 2026; no correction or retraction surfaced there. Publisher-history and forward-citation screening are not exhaustive.

Funding: Funding Statement The author(s) declare that financial support was received for the research and/or publication of this article. This work was conducted under the project “Study on the biological effects on thermal physiology and cellular functions during millimeter-wave exposure” by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications of Japan (Grant Number: JPMI10001).

Conflicts: Conflict of interest The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Source Url: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2025.1580155

Retrieval Links: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2025.1580155 | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40589806/ | https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12206703/

Verification Date: 2026-10-21

Discovery Id: EML-MMW-001

Technology Tracks: millimetre|5g|scanners

Technology Connection: Millimetre-wave laboratory biology; frequency overlap does not demonstrate effects from a deployed system.

Publication Type: Original journal research

Study Setting: Animals

Browse Categories: cells