WEB-011Original text reviewed
Skin injury and inflammation at high absorbed power at 26.5 GHz
The reported finding
At 500 W/m², blistering, epidermal thickening and oedema accompanied elevated iNOS/Iba1; serum PGE₂ increased with dose.
Reading it carefully
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.
Inside the study
Technology connection
Millimetre-wave laboratory biology; frequency overlap does not demonstrate effects from a deployed system.
Publication type
Original journal research
Exposure conditions
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 & controls
Local rat-skin experiment; blinded histological scoring; inflammatory tissue/serum markers.
Statistics
See reported finding and original tables; effect sizes not independently recalculated.
The protection question raised
Which exposure conditions and biological models reproduce this response, and what would establish its relevance to health?
Source verification
Original methods/results sections reviewed; no independent raw-data or supplement audit.
Where to find the result
Original results/methods sections
Editorial notices
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 of interest
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.
Original publication
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.