Table 3.
The adapted version of the REporting recommendations for tumor MARKer prognostic studies (REMARK) criteria for biomarker studies11.
| Adapted REMARK criteria for Quality Assessment (1 point/criteria) |
|---|
| 1. Case selection adequate and representative (baselines form medical chart, including TNM, differentiation and location) (=1 point) |
| 2. Clear description of the flow of patients through the study and reasons of dropout (=1 point) |
| 3. Used tumor material (biopsy/ resection specimen or both) (=1 point) |
| 4. Reporting the tissue handling, method of biomarker detection and clear description of scoring criteria (=1 point) |
| 5. If patients received therapy, a clear description of the treatment regimen: reported (=1 point), if treatment is unspecified (=1/2 point) |
| 6. The duration of follow-up (=1 point) |
| 7. A clear description of the confounders used in multivariate analyses (=1 point, ½ point if only univariate analyses are conducted) |
A study could be allocated one point for each of the seven criteria, in case of ambiguity, half a point was assigned. Sensitivity analyses were performed on studies assigned ≤3,5 points on the adapted REMARK criteria scale.