Image Quantitative Biomarkers

Biomarkers can be classified based on different parameters, including their characteristics, such as imaging biomarkers (computed tomography, positron emission tomography, and magnetic resonance imaging) or molecular biomarkers.

The use of biomarkers in basic and clinical research as well as in clinical practice has become so commonplace that their presence as primary endpoints in clinical trials is now accepted almost without question. In the case of specific biomarkers that have been well characterized and repeatedly shown to correctly predict relevant clinical outcomes across a variety of treatments and populations, this use is entirely justified and appropriate. In many cases, however, the “validity” of biomarkers is assumed where, in fact, it should continue to be evaluated and reevaluated.

Biomarkers are by definition objective, quantifiable characteristics of biological processes. They may but do not necessarily correlate with a patient’s experience and sense of wellbeing, and it is easy to imagine measurable biological characteristics that do not correspond to patients’ clinical state, or whose variations are undetectable and without effect on health. It is also even easier to imagine measurable biological characteristics whose variance among populations is so great as to render them all but useless as reliable predictors of disease or its absence. In contrast, clinical endpoints are variables that reflect or characterize how a subject in a study or clinical trial “feels, functions, or survives”. They are, in other words, variables that represent a study subject’s health and wellbeing from the subject’s perspective. Abundant information extracted from radiomics features gives us chances to establish bridge between radiological image features and tumor-associated molecules.

IQBMI is trying to implement these features to a safe, more accurate and quicker diagnosis. This index helps radiologists as well as clinicians to speed-up the radiological work flow.

Radiomic model building

                              Image asquisition    ROI segmentation  Features Extraction   Data integration