Background: The objective of the present study is to assess differences in the competing causes of death in patients with oropharyngeal carcinoma (OPC) as a function of the human papillomavirus (HPV) status.
Methods: We studied retrospectively 423 patients with OPC with known HPV status. Among the patients included in the study, 53 (12.5%) were HPV-positive. We analyzed overall survival and competing causes of mortality according to the HPV status of the patients.
Results: Patients with HPV-negative tumors had lower OPC cancer-specific survival (P = .0001), second primary neoplasm survival (P = .0001), and noncancer-related causes survival (P = .13) than patients with HPV-positive tumors. This resulted in significant differences in overall survival depending on HPV status (P = .0001).
Conclusion: Conclusion: HPV-positive OPC has a better overall survival than HPV-negative OPC. Patients with HPV-positive tumors presented a significant lower OPC cancer-specific and second primary neoplasm mortality and a marginally nonsignificant lower noncancer mortality as compared to HPV-negative tumors.
Keywords: HPV; competing mortality; head and neck cancer; noncancer-related deaths; oropharyngeal carcinoma; second primary cancer.
© 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.