Abstract

Palpation is used by surgeons to examine a patient’s body and build a mental map of their anatomy and its properties (e.g., tissue stiffness) in preparation for a procedure. In this paper, we propose an analogous technique for laser surgery: We call this technique Virtual Palpation as it does not involve actual physical contact with the tissue. Instead, the tissue properties of interest are inferred based on the observation of the thermal response to laser pulses.