Table 2.

Optimal number of reference miRNAs – pancreatic cancer

Number of miRNAs	Va	ΔVa	miRNAs added	Stability increased?
2	–	–	miR-103a-3p, miR-374b-5p	–
3 vs 2	0.1884	–	miR-361-5p	–
4 vs 3	0.1328	-0.0556	let-7 g-5p	yes
5 vs 4	0.1141	-0.0186	miR-28-5p	yes
6 vs 5	0.0962	-0.0179	miR-29a-3p	yes
7 vs 6	0.0831	-0.0131	miR-301a-3p	yes
8 vs 7	0.0631	-0.0200	miR-340-5p	yes
9 vs 8	0.0596	-0.0036	miR-27a-3p	yes
10 vs 9	0.0522	-0.0073	miR-106b-5p	yes
11 vs 10	0.0527	0.0005	miR-152-3p	no
12 vs 11	0.0549	0.0021	miR-26b-5p	no
13 vs 12	0.0464	-0.0084	miR-660-5p	yes
14 vs 13	0.0470	0.0006	miR-24-3p	no
15 vs 14	0.0517	0.0047	miR-23b-3p	no
16 vs 15	0.0569	0.0052	miR-199a-3p	no

MiRNAs in bold are the ones that are included in the optimal number of references to use.

^a The stability measure V is calculated according to Vandesompele et al. [21]