Table 2.

Correlation of PPARγ in HNSCC with clinicopathological factors including patients and tumor characteristics.

Characteristics	Number of Cases	PPARγ (Low)	PPARγ(High)	p valuea
Age at surgery
≤60 years	94	29	65
60 years	120	40	80	0.038
Gender
Male	154	51	103
Female	60	18	42	0.900
Smoking
No	102	30	72
Yes	112	39	73	0.866
Alcohol consumption
No	105	34	71
Yes	109	35	74	0.585
Differentiation
High	136	46	90
Moderate	56	20	36
Poor	22	3	19
High vs. moderate + poor				0.304
Tumor stage
T1	48	14	34
T2	103	36	67
T3	20	4	16
T4	43	15	28
T1-2 vs. T3-4				0.000
Clinical TNM stage
I	32	8	24
II	70	25	45
III	67	23	44
IV	45	13	32
I–III vs IV				0.955
Lymph node metastasis
No	137	47	90
Unilateral	70	21	49
Bilateral	7	1	6
No vs. unilateral + bilateral				0.004

^aP values were derived using the Spearman rank correlation coefficient test; all statistical tests are two-sided.

The expression levels of PPARγ were significantly correlated with lymph node metastasis (P = 0.004), the age (P = 0.038), and clinical TNM stage (P = 0.000) of HNSCC according to our clinical cohort (214 cases of HNSCC).