In nonclinical in vitro studies the source of information may be from a variety of levels within an experiment. To identify the relationship of the findings data to the source of the information in the experiment a relationship dataset, Related References Dataset (RELREF) is used. The RELREF dataset will identify how information is related to the design of the study and to other sources of information within the study. For example, a genetic toxicology study may have information that is expressed for an entire assay, other information based on replicate sets of petri plates from the same trial set (having the same test conditions), and additional information for the individual petri plates.
The relref.xpt dataset shows each source of information (REFID), how it is related to the study design (STUDYID, GNTXAID, SETCD), and how it relates to other sources of information on the assay (PARENT, LEVEL, LVLDESC).