Table 1. MERTK expression and clinico-pathological features of the Bonn HNSCC cohort.
| Bonn HNSCC cohort | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total number of patients n=537 | MERTK negative | Low MERTK | Medium MERTK | High MERTK | p-value | ||
| Tissues Available | |||||||
| Normal | 31 (19*) | 21 (67.7 %) | 10 (32.3 %) | 0 (0.0 %) | 0 (0.0 %) | normal mucosa vs. tumor tissue < 0.001(2) | |
| Primary tumor | 461 (52*) | 139 (30.2 %) | 162 (35.1 %) | 111 (24.1 %) | 49 (10.6 %) | ||
| Lymph node metastasis | 193 (18*) | 79 (40.9 %) | 52 (26.9 %) | 49 (25.5%) | 13 (6.7 %) | ||
| local recurrence | 54 (8*) | 27 (50.0 %) | 12 (22.2 %) | 12 (22.2%) | 3 (5.6 %) | ||
| Patients with clinical data n=449 | Number of primary tumors | MERTK negative | Low MERTK | Medium MERTK | High MERTK | P-value(no or low vs. medium or high MERTK expression) | |
| Gender | |||||||
| female | 338 (75.3 %) | 99 | 28 (28.3 %) | 34 (34.3 %) | 32 (32.3 %) | 5 (5.1 %) | 0.905 (1) |
| male | 111 (24.7 %) | 310 | 95 (30.6 %) | 102 (32.9 %) | 70 (22.6 %) | 43 (13.9 %) | |
| Age [mean years, SD] | 62.40 (10,87) | 62.76 (11.6) | 61.43 (10.0) | 62.7 (11.6) | 62.4 (10.4) | ||
| Anatomic localiza-tion of Primary | |||||||
| Oral Cavity | 110 (24.5 %) | 99 | 33 (33.3 %) | 40 (40.5 %) | 21 (21.1 %) | 5 (5.1 %) | 0.008 (2) |
| Oropharynx | 143 (31.8 %) | 132 | 36 (27.3 %) | 34 (25.8 %) | 42 (31.7 %) | 20 (15.2 %) | |
| Hypopharynx | 57 (12.7 %) | 53 | 16 (30.2 %) | 16 (30.2 %) | 12 (22.6 %) | 9 (17.0 %) | |
| Larynx | 131 (29.2 %) | 119 | 36 (30.3 %) | 44 (37.0 %) | 26 (21.8 %) | 13 (10. 9%) | |
| Unknown | 8 (1.8 %) | ||||||
| Tobacco | |||||||
| Never-Smoker | 41 (9.1 %) | 35 | 11 (31.4 %) | 10 (28.6 %) | 10 (28.6 %) | 4 (11.4 %) | 0.855 (1) |
| Ever-Smoker | 306 (68.2 %) | 278 | 82 (29.5 %) | 90 (32.4 %) | 68 (24.4 %) | 38 (13.7 %) | |
| Unknown | 102 (22.7 %) | ||||||
| Alcohol | |||||||
| Non-drinker | 122 (27.2 %) | 107 | 33 (30.9 %) | 38 (35.5 %) | 26 (24.3 %) | 10 (9.3 %) | 0.144 (2) |
| Occasional | 76 (16.9 %) | 71 | 19 (26.8 %) | 27 (38.0 %) | 14 (19.7 %) | 11 (15.5 %) | |
| Medium-Heavy | 127 (28.3 %) | 116 | 35 (30.2 %) | 28 (24.1 %) | 35 (30.2 %) | 18 (15.5 %) | |
| Unknown | 124 (27.6 %) | ||||||
| HPV Status | |||||||
| Positive | 36 (8.0 %) | 35 | 9 (25.7 %) | 9 (25.7 %) | 12 (34.3 %) | 5 (14.3 %) | 0.144 (1) |
| Negative | 413 (92.0 %) | 374 | 114 (30.4 %) | 127 (34.0 %) | 90 (24.1 %) | 43 (11.5 %) | |
| T-Stage of Primary | |||||||
| T1 | 116 (25.8 %) | 101 | 29 (28.7 %) | 40 (39.6 %) | 24 (23.8 %) | 8 (7.9 %) | 0.229 (2) |
| T2 | 149 (33.1 %) | 136 | 43 (31.6 %) | 47 (34.5 %) | 33 (24.3 %) | 13 (9.6 %) | |
| T3 | 106 (23.6 %) | 97 | 29 (29.9 %) | 27 (27.8 %) | 26 (26.8 %) | 15 (15.5 %) | |
| T4 | 74 (16.4 %) | 71 | 20 (28.2 %) | 20 (28.2 %) | 19 (26.7 %) | 12 (16.9 %) | |
| Unknown | 4 (0.008 %) | ||||||
| N Stage of Primary | |||||||
| N0 | 201 (44.8 %) | 185 | 58 (31.4 %) | 71 (38.4 %) | 38 (20.5 %) | 18 (9.7 %) | 0.041 (2) |
| N1 | 72 (16.0 %) | 67 | 18 (26.9 %) | 23 (34.3 %) | 17 (25.4 %) | 9 (13.4 %) | |
| N2 | 161 (35.9 %) | 143 | 44 (30.7 %) | 36 (25.2 %) | 44 (30.8 %) | 19 (13.3 %) | |
| N3 | 6 (1.3 %) | 5 | 1 (20.0 %) | 1 (20.0 %) | 2 (40.0 %) | 1 (20.0 %) | |
| Unknown | 9 (2.0 %) | ||||||
| M Stage of Primary | |||||||
| M0 | 432 (96.2 %) | 395 | 117 (29.6 %) | 131 (33.2 %) | 99 (25.1 %) | 48 (12.1 %) | 0.389 (1) |
| M1 | 16 (3.6 %) | 13 | 6 (46.2 %) | 4 (30.8 %) | 3 (23.0 %) | 0 (0.0 %) | |
| Unknown | 1 (0.2 %) | ||||||
| Tumor stage of Primary | |||||||
| I | 83 (18.5 %) | 76 | 24 (31.6 %) | 33 (43.4 %) | 14 (18.4 %) | 5 (6.6 %) | 0.008 (2) |
| II | 67 (14.9 %) | 58 | 20 (34.5 %) | 23 (39.7 %) | 11 (19.0 %) | 4 (6.9 %) | |
| III | 86 (19.2 %) | 82 | 20 (24.4 %) | 28 (34.2 %) | 23 (28.0 %) | 11 (13.4 %) | |
| IV | 203 (45.2 %) | 184 | 57 (31.0 %) | 47 (25.5 %) | 53 (28.8 %) | 27 (14.7 %) | |
| Unknown | 10 (2.2 %) | ||||||
| Grading | |||||||
| G1 | 2 (0.4 %) | 2 | 1 (50.0 %) | 1 (50.0 %) | 0 (0.0 %) | 0 (0.0 %) | 0.246 (2) |
| G2 | 17 (3.8 %) | 15 | 5 (33.3 %) | 7 (46.7 %) | 3 (20.0 %) | 0 (0.0 %) | |
| G3 | 238 (53.0 %) | 217 | 66 (30.4 %) | 72 (33.2 %) | 57 (26.3 %) | 22 (10.1 %) | |
| G4 | 113 (25.2 %) | 103 | 29 (28.2 %) | 30 (29.1 %) | 27 (26.2 %) | 17 (16.5 %) | |
| Unknown | 79 (17.6 %) | ||||||
Summary of clinico-pathological features of the cohort used for MERTK expression analyses. For some patients tissue for more than one entity (e.g. normal and primary tumor) could be used in IHC (SD, standard deviation;
*
number of stained tissue samples for which clinical information was not available). Significance was tested with (1) Fisher test: exact, (2) Fisher test: Monte Carlo, 100 000 random samples.