Microarray based diagnosis profits from better documentation of gene expression signatures.

ABSTRACT: Microarray gene expression signatures hold great promise to improve diagnosis and prognosis of disease. However, current documentation standards of such signatures do not allow for an unambiguous application to study-external patients. This hinders independent evaluation, effectively delaying the use of signatures in clinical practice. Data from eight publicly available clinical microarray studies were analyzed and the consistency of study-internal with study-external diagnoses was evaluated. Study-external classifications were based on documented information only. Documenting a signature is conceptually different from reporting a list of genes. We show that even the exact quantitative specification of a classification rule alone does not define a signature unambiguously. We found that dis

SUBMITTER: Kostka D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2242819 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature