Safety of Intraoral Coils: Accuracy of Simulations

Motivation: In dental applications intraoral coils (IOCs) offer higher SNR than external surface coils, but the details of RF-induced heating of an intraoral coil dependent on many factors such as coil size, shape, incident E-field, surrounding tissue, and acquisition protocol. Goal(s): This study investigates the effect of anatomical model complexity on SAR simulations for IOCs. Approach: Numerical simulations were compared to electric field mapping and temperature measurements to evaluate RF-induced heating of various IOCs. Results: RF heating and SAR simulations of IOCs can be performed with limited tissue models, but the required complexity of the tissue model depends on the coil type. Impact: The complexity of numerical simulations can be reduced to limited tissues while maintaining accuracy of SAR estimation to determine the safety of intraoral coils through hotspot detection.