HPV Best Predictor Of Throat Cancer Survival

Results of the study further revealed the second leading predictor of survival is lifetime smoking history, followed by cancer stage. The study was led by Maura Gillison, MD, PhD, at the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center-Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute (OSUCCC-James).

The complete report appears online in the New England Journal of Medicine (http://content.nejm.org/)

Findings in the study suggest the aggressiveness of a patient’s therapy can be gauged using a combination of a tumor’s HPV status, patient smoking and cancer stage.

“Previous studies indicated that a relationship existed between the presence or absence of HPV in oropharyngeal tumors and patient survival,” notes Gillison, a medical oncologist and head and neck cancer specialist at OSUCCC-James. How these factors and others may have improved outcomes were not specified by earlier studies, he adds.

Gillison says the research effort will help move forward clinical trials designed to determine how to use molecular and behavioral factors to personalize patient therapy.

Researchers examined 323 patients who had stage III or IV oropharyngeal cancer. Among the study’s subjects 206 were found to have HPV-positive tumors and 117 were found to have HPV-negative tumors.

A comparison found 82% of patients with HPV-positive tumors were still alive three years post-treatment, with the group experiencing a relapse rate of 43%, according to researchers. Among patients with HPV-negative tumors, 57% remained alive and the relapse rate was 74% for the same period.

The investigation identified the presence of HPV in tumors as the factor most greatly connected to differences in patients’ responses to therapy and survival rates. The study also showed that the second most significant predictor of survival and relapse rates associated with oropharyngeal cancer was smoking history.

“The two risk factors that place an individual at risk for oropharyngeal cancer are also the most important factors determining patient survival,” Gillison concludes. “This is probably because these factors determine the genetic profile of these cancers and how they respond to treatment.”