Table 3.
Quality assessment of the studies included in the present review.
| Criteria * | Fekete et al. (24) | Liu et al. (25) | Pedroza-Torres et al. (26) | Fan et al. (27) | Chen et al. (28) | Ke et al. (29) | Gao et al. (31) | Wei et al. (30) | Wei et al. (32) | Liu et al. (33) | Song et al. (34) | Chen et al. (35) | Sun et al. (36) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | |||||||||||||
| 2. | |||||||||||||
| 3. | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA |
| 4. | |||||||||||||
| 5. | |||||||||||||
| 6. | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | |
| 7. | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA |
| 8. | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA |
| 9. | |||||||||||||
| 10. | |||||||||||||
| 11. | |||||||||||||
| 12. | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA |
| 13. | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA |
| 14. |
*Criteria: 1) Was the research question or objective in this paper clearly stated? 2) Was the study population clearly specified and defined? 3) Was the participation rate of eligible persons at least 50%? 4) Were all the subjects selected or recruited from the same or similar populations (including the same time period)? Were inclusion and exclusion criteria for being in the study prespecified and applied uniformly to all participants? Including period and place of recruitment (setting and geographic location) adequately described 5) Were a sample size justification, power description, or variance and effect estimates provided? 6) For the analyses in this paper, were the exposure(s) of interest measured prior to the outcome(s) being measured? 7) Was the time frame sufficient so that one could reasonably expect to observe an association between exposure and outcome if it existed? 8) For exposures that can vary in amount or level, did the study examine different levels of the exposure as related to the outcome (e.g., categories of exposure or exposure measured as a continuous variable)? 9) Were the exposure measures (independent variables) clearly defined, valid, reliable, and implemented consistently across all study participants? (Assessment of miRNA analysis and validation in an independent cohort) 10) Was the exposure(s) assessed more than once over time? 11) Were the outcome measures (dependent variables) clearly defined, valid, reliable, and implemented consistently across all study participants? (Assessment of response) 12) Were the outcome assessors blinded to the exposure status of participants? 13) Was loss to follow-up after baseline 20% or less? 14) Were key potential confounding variables measured and adjusted statistically for their impact on the relationship between exposure(s) and outcome(s)? Highlighted in red criteria adapted to the papers analyzed.
Quality was rated as poor (0–4 out of 14 questions), fair (5–10 out of 14 questions), or good (11–14 out of 14 questions).
Green, yes; Red, no; Orange, partial (i.e., validation on the same cohort but with different technique); NA, not applicable.