Pre-exposure of mice to 900 MHz radiofrequency fields has resulted in a significant reduction in hematopoietic damage caused by subsequent exposure to ionising radiation. This phenomenon appears to be similar to that of the 'adaptive response' which is well documented in scientific literature.

Human promyelocytic leukemia HL-60 cells were pre-exposed to non-ionizing 900 MHz radiofrequency fields (RF) at 12 µW/cm2 power density for 1 hour/day for 3 days and then treated with a chemotherapeutic drug, doxorubicin (DOX, 0.125 mg/L). Several end-points related to toxicity, viz., viability, apoptosis, mitochondrial membrane potential (MMP), intracellular free calcium (Ca2+) and Ca2+-Mg2+ -ATPase activity were measured. The results obtained in un-exposed and sham-exposed control cells were compared with those exposed to RF alone, DOX alone and RF+DOX. The results indicated no significant differences between un-exposed, sham-exposed control cells and those exposed to RF alone while treatment with DOX alone showed a significant decrease in viability, increased apoptosis, decreased MMP, increased Ca2+ and decreased Ca2+-Mg2+-ATPase activity. When the latter results were compared with cells exposed RF+DOX, the data showed increased cell proliferation, decreased apoptosis, increased MMP, decreased Ca2+ and increased Ca2+-Mg2+-ATPase activity. Thus, RF pre-exposure appear to protect the HL-60 cells from the toxic effects of subsequent treatment with DOX. These observations were similar to our earlier data which suggested that pre-exposure of mice to 900 MHz RF at 120 µW/cm2 power density for 1 hours/day for 14 days had a protective effect in hematopoietic tissue damage induced by subsequent gamma-irradiation.

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