Can a single PDE govern well the propagation of the electric wave field in a heterogeneous medium in 3D

It is demonstrated in this paper that the propagation of the electric wave field in a heterogeneous medium in 3D can sometimes be governed well by a single PDE, which is derived from the Maxwell's equations. The corresponding component of the electric field dominates two other components. This justifies some past results of the second author with coauthors about numerical solutions of coefficient inverse problems with experimental electromagnetic data. In addition, since it is simpler to work in applications with a single PDE rather than with the complete Maxwell's system, then the result of this paper might be useful to researchers working on applied issues of the propagation of electromagnetic waves in inhomogeneous media.