Purpose: We investigated the effects of subchronic exposure to radio frequency emitted from a conventional cellular telephone on the testicular function in adult rats.
Materials and methods: A total of 16 male Wistar rats at age 30 days were randomly divided into 2 groups, including experimental and control groups. The experimental group was exposed to radio frequency emitted from a conventional GSM (global system for mobile communications) cellular telephone (1,835 to 1,850 MHz) for 1 hour daily during 11 weeks. Rectal temperature was measured before and after the exposure period. Testicular and epididymal weight, lipid peroxidation levels in these organs, serum total testosterone and the epididymal sperm count were evaluated. Maturation phase spermatid retention at stage IX-X, interstitial infiltration, cellular vacuolation and multinucleate giant cells were among the qualitative testicular histopathological end points analyzed. Each rat had 10 consecutive round seminiferous tubules at stage VII-VIII evaluated for the mean seminiferous tubular diameter measurement, the crude histological count of round spermatids, pachytene spermatocytes and Sertoli's cells with evident nucleoli, and the true histological count (Abercrombie's correction factor) of round spermatids and pachytene spermatocytes.
Results: Mean rectal temperature did not alter following exposure. There was no statistical difference between the control and experimental groups in any end points evaluated.
Conclusions: The current study shows that the low intensity pulsed radio frequency emitted by a conventional cellular telephone does not impair testicular function in adult rats.