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The latest study was carried out by Dr Gerald Draper and colleagues from the Childhood Cancer Research Group at Oxford University, and Dr John Swanson, a scientific adviser at National Grid Transco.
It looked at more than 29,000 children with cancer, including 9,700 with leukaemia, born between 1962 and 1995, and a control group of healthy youngsters in England and Wales.
The researchers measured the distance from children’s home addresses at birth from the nearest high voltage power line.
They found that 64 children with leukaemia lived within 200m of the line, while 258 lived between 200-600m away.
Overall, youngsters living within 200m of the lines were about 70% more likely to develop leukaemia, and those living between 200 and 600m away about 20% more likely to develop leukaemia than those who lived beyond 600m from high voltage pylons.
Although the trend was definite, the researchers said they could not reasonably explain why it occurred.
For this reason, they caution that it might be down to factors other than the pylons themselves, such as the type of people who live near pylons or the general environment where pylons are located, which they plan to investigate.