Oropharyngeal cancer prognosis by tumour HPV status in France: The multicentric Papillophar study

Human-papillomavirus-positive (HPV-pos) and HPV-negative (HPV-neg) oropharyngeal cancer (OPC) differ with respect to many biological [1], clinical [2,3], and epidemiological aspects [4,5]. The survival advantage among HPV-pos OPC patients has been attributed to less severe genetic alterations, e.g., lower rates of TP53 mutations [1] and, possibly, better response to radio- and chemo-therapy than in HPV-neg OPC that are mainly caused by the use of tobacco and alcohol [5]. However, most previous reports on OPC prognosis by HPV status were conducted in populations (mainly the United States, [5], Australia [6]) and/or among selected clinical trial patients [2] in whom markers of HPV-positivity were more prevalent and heavy tobacco exposure less frequent than in Southern Europe and low and middle-income countries [7].

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