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World Cancer Congress 2009, Beijing·China

Title:

Why is there a left laterality of melanoma and breast cancer?

Mr. Hallberg Ö, Dr Johansson O

Assoc. Prof. Experimental Dermatology Unit, Department of Neuroscience,Karolinska Institute, 171 77 Stockholm, Sweden

Abstract

The object of this study was to understand why breast cancer frequently occurs in theleft breast among both women and men. Moreover, recent results showed that the leftside of the body also is more prone to melanoma than the right side. A literaturesearch showed that current explanations for left-sided breast cancer includehandiness, size difference, nursing preference, and brain structure. However, men areaffected even more by left laterality than women, thus many of these explanations areunconvincing. Increasing rates of skin melanoma have been associated with immune-disruptive radiation from FM/TV transmitters. Geographical areas covered by severaltransmitters show higher incidences of melanoma than areas covered by onetransmitter. Here we show that a high prevalence of breast cancer and melanoma onthe left side of the body may be a logical consequence of sleeping in beds havingmattresses containing wave-reflecting metal springs. We found that people tend tosleep for longer periods on their right side, apparently to avoid disturbance by theheartbeat. This puts the left side farther away from the field-attenuating influence of themetal springs in the mattress; thus the left side will spend, on average, more timeexposed to stronger combined fields from incident and reflected waves. This

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World Cancer Congress 2009, Beijing·China

hypothesis may also explain why body parts furthest away from the mattress (trunkand upper arms for men; lower limbs and hips for women) have higher melanomarates than the sun-exposed face area. The implications of this study should promote acritical consideration of population exposure to electromagnetic fields, especiallyduring the night. Wave-reflecting beds should be avoided as e.g. in Japan wheremelanoma only reaches 3% of the Swedish incidence.

Biography

Örjan Hallberg, born 1942, received a Master of Science degree in ElectricalEngineering from the Technical University of Chalmers in 1966. After heading acomponent engineering group within the Swedish Administration of Telecommunication he worked from 1971 to 1981 as manager of the componentreliability unit within ELLEMTEL Development AB. In 1981 he was appointed qualitymanager within an Ericsson company. From 1987 to 2003 Hallberg worked withinEricsson as Qualification and Vendor assessment Manager, Product ImprovementManager and finally since 1998 as Environmental Manager for two business areaswithin Ericsson. From 2003 onwards Hallberg has been managing his own researchcompany, Hallberg Independent Research.Hallberg has co-authored one book about long term reliability of technical systems,authored 17 publications in reliability journals and conferences and, so far, authored 29publications in medical journals and conferences. In 1996 Hallberg was appointedExpert Reliability Engineering within the Ericsson Corporation.