p63 expression in laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma is related to tumor extension, histologic grade, lymph node involvement and clinical stage

Abstract

To analyse the relationship of the immunohistochemical p63 expression with tumoral extent, histologic grade, lymph node involvement and clinical stage in laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma (LSCC), a series of 81 patients with primary LSCC treated by primary surgery was retrospectively evaluated. Immunohistochemistry was performed on formalin-fixed and paraffin-embedded tissue blocks from surgical samples. Clinicopathologic data were correlated with the p63 staining results. Differences in p63 immunoreactivity between the different groups were compared using both parametric analysis of variance (ANOVA) and non-parametric Kruskal-Wallis test. Statistical significance was set at p less than 0.05. All statistical analyses were performed using the R statistical package. We found a statistically significant association between p63 protein expression and increase of tumor extension (T1 vs T3), of histological grading, of level of lymph node involvement (N0 vs N1 and N2), and clinical stage (I vs IV). Our findings suggest that abnormal expression of p63 may be involved in the early phases of laryngeal tumorigenesis and this oncoprotein might become a useful predictor of clinical outcome.