The clinical data collected for each GTEx donor belongs to one of two categories: donor-level data or sample level data. Donor level data encompasses all clinical measures of the donor, which includes basic demographics, medication use, medical history, laboratory test results, and the circumstances surrounding the donor’s death. These data are collected from the donor (surgical) or next of kin (post-mortem) and verified against the donor’s medical record when readily available. Summary frequency distributions for clinical variables are available in dbGaP. Sample level data are attributes belonging to each sample collected and include the tissue type, ischemic time, comments from the prosector and pathology reviewer, and process metadata such as batch ID and the amount of time spent in the PAXgene fixative. Both donor and sample level data are checked for quality and completeness before being released.
