The purpose of this paper is to compare two models of the electrical proper
ties of tissue, which may be used to relate the effective conductivity to t
he volume Fraction f of cells in the tissue. Both models assume that tissue
comprises spherical cells, which behave electrically as dipoles. The first
model, developed by Hanai, describes the tissue as a concentrated suspensi
on of weakly conducting spheres in a conducting medium, with each sphere ex
periencing a uniform mean field. The second approach, developed by Chiew an
d Glandt, explicitly describes the effect of a random but statistically hom
ogeneous cell structure on the average field and magnitude of the dipole in
teraction. The two analyses are identical to first order in f, but differ i
n the way in which the interactions between the dipoles are accounted for.
The model developed by Chiew and Glandt appears to offer a more robust theo
retical framework for describing the electrical properties of tissue. The c
omparison aims to contribute to an improved understanding of the relationsh
ip between the electrical properties and spatial structure of tissue.