Ultrasound palpation by haptic elastography

Palpation is an important method in the medical physical examination. Surface palpation alone, however, cannot be used in many situations due to the anatomical positions. Elastography images are therefore in many cases a complement to other imaging modalities. In this article we present a method for providing haptic feedback from elastography imaging data, allowing palpation of the hardness data. A prototype implementation was used in a demonstration session with domain experts providing feedback on the presented algorithm and also on the basic principle of palpating data from elastography imaging.