Guidelines and Experience Using Imaging Biomarker Explorer (IBEX) for Radiomics.

Area of Science:

• Radiomics
• Medical Imaging Analysis
• Computational Pathology

Background:

• Radiomics is an emerging field that extracts quantitative features from medical images.
• Standardized tools are needed for reproducible radiomics analysis.
• The Imaging Biomarker Explorer (IBEX) is an open-source software designed for radiomics workflows.

Purpose of the Study:

• To describe the utilization of the Imaging Biomarker Explorer (IBEX) graphical user interface (GUI).
• To demonstrate the application of IBEX-derived radiomic features in clinical research.
• To highlight the capabilities of IBEX in medical imaging analysis.

Main Methods:

• IBEX supports DICOM image import with associated structure files (DICOM RT or Pinnacle).
• The IBEX GUI offers tools for image manipulation, measurements, and contour editing.
• IBEX provides 27 preprocessing options and 132 feature choices with adjustable parameters.

Main Results:

• IBEX generates a comprehensive output spreadsheet detailing calculated features, image information, and analysis parameters.
• IBEX-calculated features have been utilized in studies assessing feature variability across imaging conditions.
• Features derived from IBEX have been incorporated into survival models to improve predictive accuracy.

Conclusions:

• IBEX is a versatile, open-source tool for radiomics research, offering extensive customization.
• The software facilitates reproducible feature extraction and analysis for clinical applications.
• IBEX-derived features show potential for enhancing clinical decision-making and patient outcome prediction.