Nodal staging convergence for HPV− and HPV+ oropharyngeal carcinoma

Abstract

Modern disease staging systems have restructured human papillomavirus (HPV)‐negative (HPV−) and HPV‐positive (HPV+) oropharyngeal carcinoma (OPC) into distinct pathologic nodal systems. Given that quantitative lymph node (LN) burden is the dominant prognostic factor in most head and neck cancers, we investigated whether HPV− and HPV+ OPC warrant divergent pathologic nodal classification.