A Closer Look at the Thresholds of Thermal Damage: Workshop Report by an ICNIRP Task Group

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This paper summarised the presentations given in a workshop jointly organised by the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP) and the World Health Organization (WHO). The workshop focused on the heat-related effects and thresholds of thermal damage for RF exposure, to gather valuable input into the upcoming revision of ICNIRP guidelines (PDF 647 kb) for limiting human exposure to RF fields originally developed in 1998. The workshop identified a knowledge gap in the relationship between temperature and harm, since it is variable across tissue and organ type. A great deal of knowledge in this area is based on mild hyperthermia condition, which may not be applicable in the condition of small temperature increase caused by RF exposure below the limits in the Guidelines. The workshop also found that the heating effects caused by RF sources are consistent with other heat sources and that absolute temperature of tissues is more relevant than temperature elevation in relation to thermal damage.

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