Optical palpation for the visualization of tumor in human breast tissue
Accurate and effective removal of tumor in one operation is an important goal of breast‐conserving surgery. However, it is not always achieved. Surgeons often utilize manual palpation to assess the surgical margin and/or the breast cavity. Manual palpation, however, is subjective and has relatively low‐resolution. Here, we investigate a tactile imaging technique, optical palpation, for the visualization of tumor. Optical palpation generates maps of the stress at the surface of tissue under static preload compression. Stress is evaluated by measuring the deformation of a contacting thin compliant layer with known mechanical properties using optical coherence tomography. In ...
