Validated biomarkers for breast cancer detection and effect of confounding factors (Pre-validation sample set n = 93).

NOTE: Eight mRNA biomarkers (in italic) were validated by RT-qPCR and one protein biomarker was validated by immunobloting using the validation sample set, including saliva from 30 breast cancer patients and 63 healthy control subjects. The Mann-Whitney rank sum test was used to determine marker validation. Possible confounding factors, including age, ethnicity, smoking status, menopausal status, and HRT treatment, were evaluated on the validated biomarkers by logistic regression model. Linear regression model was constructed for each marker and used the factors cancer/normal and one of the confounders. Abbreviations: cv.err: cross validation error rate.