RadEx: Integrated visual exploration of multiparametric studies for radiomic tumor profiling

Abstract

Better understanding of the complex processes driving tumor growth and metastases is critical for developing targeted treatment strategies in cancer. Radiomics extracts large amounts of features from medical images which enables radiomic tumor profiling in combination with clinical markers. However, analyzing complex imaging data in combination with clinical data is not trivial and supporting tools aiding in these exploratory analyses are presently missing. In this paper, we present an approach that aims to enable the analysis of multiparametric medical imaging data in combination with numerical, ordinal, and categorical clinical parameters to validate established and unravel novel biomarkers. We propose a hybrid approach where dimensionality reduction to a single axis is combined with multiple linked views allowing clinical experts to formulate hypotheses based on all available imaging data and clinical parameters. This may help to reveal novel tumor characteristics in relation to molecular targets for treatment, thus providing better tools for enabling more personalized targeted treatment strategies. To confirm the utility of our approach, we closely collaborate with experts from the field of gynecological cancer imaging and conducted an evaluation with six experts in this field.