Human papillomavirus in HNSCC: a European epidemiologic perspective.

The aim of this study was to assess incidence and survival of human papillomavirus-related and unrelated head and neck squamous cell carcinoma sites from 15 European population-based cancer registries. This analysis was performed on 29,265 adult (aged approximately 15 years) cancer patients diagnosed in the period from 1988 to 2002. The human papillomavirus-unrelated cancer sites had an age-standardized incidence higher than the human papillomavirus-related cancer cases (3.8 versus 2.5/100,000 year). Incidence rates of head and neck squamous cell carcinomas increased more for human papillomavirus-related than unrelated cancer sites. Three-year survival rates improved more in human papillomavirus-related than unrelated cancer sites, and women had better rates of survival than men.