CTX-002Replication and cohort context
The International Collaborative Animal Study of the carcinogenicity and genotoxicity of mobile phone radiofrequency radiation: the Korean study
The reported finding
Separate Korean arm: 70 male rats/group; 900 MHz CDMA, 4 W/kg did not reproduce significant tumour/genotoxic changes. Survival 58.6% RF vs 54.3% sham at 104 weeks was comparable. Shared protocol with Japan; independently conducted/analysed.
Reading it carefully
Important reproducibility boundary; Japanese differential-survival caveat cannot be applied to Korean arm. No sweeping human-safety inference.
Inside the study
Exposure conditions
900 MHz CDMA-IS95A (1.25-MHz bandwidth), whole-body average SAR 4 W/kg in a reverberation chamber; gestational days 5-21, postnatal days 1-21, then 104 weeks post-weaning (postnatal days 22-749). Daily 18 h20 in 10-min on/off cycles, seven days/week (about 9 h10 RF-on).
Design & controls
Three groups: RF, identical chamber sham without RF, and standard cage control; 70 male Hsd:Sprague Dawley SD rats/group for the two-year study. Shared ICAS protocol with Japan; separately conducted and analysed.
The protection question raised
How do the nonconfirming Korean results constrain the positive NTP inference? Comparable group survival rules out borrowing the Japanese survival explanation; exposure and protocol differences still require careful interpretation.
Source verification
Primary methods/abstract/results and government BfS discussion reviewed; not full supplemental audit.
Where to find the result
Original Materials and Methods: RF exposure system; Animal assignment; RF exposure schedule and Figure 2B; 2-year study. Original results survival and tumour tables; final PDF p.14 disclosures.
Editorial notices
No editorial notice located in DOI/title checks on 2026-10-20; publisher notice-history audit not exhaustive.
Funding
Korean-government MSIT/IITP grants RS-2024-00466966 and 2019-0-00102, with Japan MIC grant 0155-0094. Original final PDF p 14 states no actual/potential conflicts, no RF-technology commercial funding and no funder role in design, collection, analysis, interpretation, writing or submission decision.
Conflicts of interest
Authors declare no actual or potential conflicts; no RF-technology commercial funding.
Original publication
Kim HS, Han KH, Kim YB, Jeon SB, Lee AK, Moon JI, Choi HD, Imaida K, Yokohira M, Kawabe M, Imai N, Wang J, Ahn YH. The International Collaborative Animal Study of the carcinogenicity and genotoxicity of mobile phone radiofrequency radiation: the Korean study. Toxicological Sciences. 2026;209(3):kfag001. doi:10.1093/toxsci/kfag001.