Dosimetry studies on a fetus model combining medical image information and a synthetic woman body

Abstract

Wireless systems are increasingly used and the electromagnetic fields (EMF) generated by these systems have induced a large public concern regarding potential sanitary effects, in particular on children and fetus during pregnancy. Few works have been performed to analyze the fetus exposure but additional studies are still needed, based on precise anatomical models. In this paper, we propose a new method to assess the fetus exposure, based on realistic anatomical models built from 3D MRI images at different gestational ages. The whole body specific absorption rate (SAR) and the maximum SAR over 10 grams have been estimated using finite differences in time domain (FDTD) simulation methods for five fetuses at different ages. Results show that the local and the whole body SAR are lower in the fetus than in the mother and that they depend on position and morphology but not on gestational age. © 2009 Springer-Verlag.