Table 2.
Clinical characteristics and their individual relationships with ERα status*
| Clinical characteristic | TCGA-chemoradiation subset No. (%) |
OPSC-CR No. (%) |
||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total (n = 168) | ERα-low† (n = 110) | ERα-high† (n = 56) | P ‡ | Total (n = 215) | ERα- (n = 104) | ERα+ (n = 111) | P ‡ | |
| Sex | ||||||||
| Male | 137 (81.5) | 88 (80.0) | 49 (87.5) | .28 | 174 (80.9) | 87 (83.7) | 87 (78.4) | .38 |
| Female | 31 (18.5) | 22 (20.0) | 7 (12.5) | 41 (19.1) | 17 (16.3) | 24 (21.6) | ||
| Age, y | ||||||||
| ≤60 | 111 (66.1) | 68 (61.8) | 42 (75.0) | .12 | 141 (65.6) | 67 (64.4) | 74 (66.7) | .78 |
| >60 | 57 (33.9) | 42 (38.2) | 14 (25.0) | 74 (34.4) | 37 (35.6) | 37 (33.3) | ||
| Race | ||||||||
| Caucasian | 141 (83.9) | 88 (82.2) | 51 (91.1) | .17 | 195 (90.7) | 91 (94.8) | 104 (97.2) | .48 |
| Non-Caucasian | 24 (14.3) | 19 (17.8) | 5 (8.9) | 8 (3.7) | 5 (5.2) | 3 (2.8) | ||
| Unknown | 3 (1.8) | — | — | 12 (5.6) | — | — | ||
| Primary site | ||||||||
| Tonsil | 27 (16.1) | 11 (10.0) | 15 (26.8) | .03 | 95 (44.2) | 40 (38.8) | 55 (49.6) | .003 |
| Base of tongue | 16 (9.5) | 10 (9.1) | 6 (10.7) | 103 (47.9) | 49 (47.6) | 54 (48.6) | ||
| Other OP | 6 (3.6) | 4 (3.6) | 2 (3.6) | 16 (7.4) | 14 (13.6) | 2 (1.8) | ||
| Non-OP | 119 (79.8) | 85 (77.2) | 33 (58.9) | — | — | — | ||
| Unknown | 0 | — | — | 1 (0.5) | — | — | ||
| Smoke Ever | ||||||||
| Never (<1 PY) | 43 (25.6) | 25 (22.7) | 17 (30.4) | .35 | 72 (33.5) | 29 (28.7) | 43 (39.4) | .11 |
| Ever (≥1 PY) | 125 (74.4) | 85 (77.3) | 39 (69.6) | 138 (64.2) | 72 (71.3) | 66 (60.6) | ||
| Unknown | 0 | — | — | 5 (2.3) | — | — | ||
| Alcohol abuse | ||||||||
| No | 64 (38.1) | 38 (69.1) | 25 (92.6) | .02 | 160 (74.4) | 75 (76.5) | 85 (85.0) | .15 |
| Yes | 19 (11.3) | 17 (30.9) | 2 (7.4) | 38 (17.7) | 23 (23.5) | 15 (15.0) | ||
| Unknown | 85 (50.6) | — | — | 17 (7.9) | — | — | ||
| Tumor classification | ||||||||
| T0–2 | 53 (31.5) | 28 (25.5) | 24 (42.9) | .03 | 146 (67.9) | 64 (65.3) | 82 (75.9) | .09 |
| T3–T4 | 115 (68.5) | 82 (74.5) | 32 (57.1) | 60 (27.9) | 34 (34.7) | 26 (24.1) | ||
| Unknown | 0 | — | — | 9 (4.2) | — | — | ||
| Nodal Classification | ||||||||
| N1–N2a | 63 (37.5) | 42 (38.2) | 21 (37.5) | 1 | 89 (41.4) | 48 (48.5) | 41 (38.0) | .16 |
| N2b–N3 | 105 (62.5) | 68 (61.8) | 35 (62.5) | 118 (54.9) | 51 (51.5) | 67 (62.0) | ||
| Unknown | 0 | — | — | 8 (3.7) | — | — | ||
| Metastasis at presentation | ||||||||
| No | 165 (98.2) | 107 (98.2) | 56 (100) | .55 | 197 (91.6) | 94 (94.9) | 103 (98.1) | .27 |
| Yes | 2 (1.2) | 2 (1.8) | 0 (0) | 7 (3.3) | 5 (5.1) | 2 (1.9) | ||
| Unknown | 1 (0.6) | — | 11 (5.1) | — | — | |||
| Keratinizing | ||||||||
| No | — | — | — | — | 165 (76.8) | 70 (68.6) | 95 (85.6) | .005 |
| Yes | 48 (22.3) | 32 (31.4) | 16 (14.4) | |||||
| Unknown | 2 (0.9) | — | — | |||||
| HPV status | ||||||||
| Negative | 123 (73.2) | 95 (86.4) | 28 (50.0) | <.001 | 38 (17.7) | 30 (28.8) | 8 (7.2) | <.001 |
| Positive | 43 (25.6) | 15 (13.6) | 28 (50.0) | 177 (82.3) | 74 (71.2) | 103 (92.8) | ||
| Unknown | 2 (1.2) | — | — | — | — | — | ||
*
“Unknown” omitted from analyses. ERα = estrogen receptor α; HPV = human papillomavirus; OP = oropharyngeal; OPSC-CR = oropharyngeal squamous carcinoma chemoradiation cohort; PY = pack-years; TCGA = The Cancer Genome Atlas
†
High versus low ERα based on mRNA expression cutoff shown in Figure 1A.
‡
P values were calculated using a two-sided Fisher test.