In the genus-level heatmap ( Figure 4B ), marked by red boxes, Haemophilus and Fusobacterium exhibited high abundance (red) in the non-tumor group (S.N, bottom row) but were significantly decreased (blue) in the lung cancer group (S.L, top row), with statistical tests showing highly significant differences ( P < 0.01, dark red diamonds).
Although the overall distribution of pathological type did not reach statistical significance between the EL and AL groups (χ 2 = 4.523, P = 0.1042), the advanced-stage group showed a relatively higher proportion of non-adenocarcinoma histologies, which was therefore considered in subsequent sensitivity and multivariable analyses.
(1) Depleted Taxa: Certain taxa commonly found in healthy oral cavities showed a decreasing trend in abundance with disease progression.
PCoA analysis of saliva samples ( Figure 3A ) showed a trend toward separation of the community centroids between the non-tumor group (S.N, red) and the lung cancer group (S.L, blue), despite some overlap in spatial distribution.