Editing Elastography (section)

==Historical background==
[[File:Breast self-exam illustration (series of 6) (3).jpg|thumb|upright|right|[[Palpation]] has long been used to detect disease. In a [[breast self-examination]], women look for hard lumps, as cancer is usually stiffer than healthy tissue.]]
[[Palpation]] is the practice of feeling the stiffness of a person's or animal's tissues with the health practitioner's hands. Manual palpation dates back at least to 1500 BC, with the Egyptian [[Ebers Papyrus]] and [[Edwin Smith Papyrus]] both giving instructions on diagnosis with palpation. In [[ancient Greece]], [[Hippocrates]] gave instructions on many forms of diagnosis using palpation, including palpation of the breasts, wounds, bowels, ulcers, uterus, skin, and tumours. In the modern Western world, palpation became considered a respectable method of diagnosis in the 1930s.<ref name=Wells>{{cite journal |last=Wells |first=P. N. T. |date= June 2011 |title= Medical ultrasound: imaging of soft tissue strain and elasticity |journal= Journal of the Royal Society, Interface |volume= 8|issue= 64|pages=1521–1549 |doi=10.1098/rsif.2011.0054|pmid=21680780 |pmc=3177611}}</ref> Since then, the practice of palpation has become widespread, and it is considered an effective method of detecting tumours and other pathologies.

Manual palpation has several important limitations: it is limited to tissues accessible to the physician's hand, it is distorted by any intervening tissue, and it is [[wikt:qualitative|qualitative]] but not [[wikt:quantitative|quantitative]]. Elastography, the measurement of tissue stiffness, seeks to address these challenges.