We included 63 HNSCC transcriptomic studies into three specific categories of comparisons: Pre, premalignant lesions v.s. normal; TvN, primary tumors v.s. normal; and Meta, metastatic or invasive v.s. primary tumors.
The age of the index cases at diagnosis did not differ between any categories of comparisons.
Because of the relatively large number of tests conducted (multiple pollutants, multiple outcomes, and multiple lag times), the percentage of tests yielding significant associations is reported for major categories of comparisons.
In general, our results demonstrated a fair degree of overall correlation between all platforms and yet revealed that, to varying degrees, three platforms, both RNA-seq protocols and the Agilent microarray, outperformed the remaining three microarray platforms in most categories of comparisons.
A list of selected reference articles for each category of comparison mode dimension is shown in Table 10.
A list of selected reference articles for each category of comparison purpose dimension is shown in Table 11.
(c) Combining different levels of the two policies: In a third category of comparisons, we combine different levels of subsidy expenditure and EFRs to reflect the fact that policies can be combined.
Only minor differences within the clustered categories of physicians (comparison between physicians, fellows, residents) and nurses (ICU nurses, nurses in training) were observed.
This issue was reflected in the difficulties encountered in matching the age categories for comparison of development-related gene expression in the five different types of tissue available with appropriate annotation (Additional file 1: Table S1, Figure 6).
