Calculation of electric fields induced in the human knee by a coil applicator

Calculations are presented of the induced electric fields and current densities in the cartilage of the knee produced by a coil applicator developed for applying pulsed magnetic fields to osteoarthritic knees. This applicator produces a sawtooth-like magnetic field waveform composed of a series of 260-μs pulses with a peak to peak magnitude of approximately 0.12 mT in the cartilage region. The simulations were performed using a recently developed 3 dimensional finite difference frequency domain technique for solving Maxwell's equations with an equivalent circuit model. The tissue model was obtained from the anatomically segmented human body model of Gandhi. The temporal peak electric field magnitude was found to be −153 mV/m, averaged within the medial cartilage of the knee for the typical dB/dt excitation levels of this coil. The technique can be extended to analyze other excitation waveforms and applicator designs. Bioelectromagnetics 22:224–231, 2001. © 2001 Wiley-Liss, Inc.