Pharynx (naso-, oro-, hypopharynx)

C09-C13WHO Vol. 9

Head & Neck

Prognosis

This section is being prepared by our editorial process.

🔬 Histological Types

📚 Latest Research

2026-09-10

Comparative Effectiveness of Induction Chemotherapy Regimens in Pediatric and Adolescent Locally Advanced Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma: A Retrospective IPTW Analysis.

Xie R, et al

In a retrospective study of 493 pediatric and adolescent patients (aged ≤ 21 years) with locally advanced nasopharyngeal carcinoma, non-taxane-plus-platinum induction chemotherapy regimens — including TPF/C, PF, and GP — were associated with significantly superior distant metastasis-free survival compared to the taxane-plus-platinum (TP) regimen alone (p = 0.032), a finding that held after inverse probability of treatment weighting adjustment. Despite this survival advantage, the non-TP group experienced a notably higher rate of any-grade toxicities (98.4% vs. 92.0%; p = 0.002), highlighting a meaningful efficacy-safety trade-off. Subgroup analyses further identified younger patients (aged ≤ 14 years), those with EBV-DNA ≤ 4000 copies/mL, and those with N3 stage disease as potentially at greater risk of worse outcomes with TP-based induction. These findings, drawn from 16 years of follow-up data with a median follow-up of 69 months, suggest that non-TP regimens should be preferred for induction chemotherapy in this vulnerable population, pending prospective validation.

International journal of cancer

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2026-09-09

Circulating tumor HPV DNA reappearance as an early indicator of recurrence after radiotherapy-based treatment for HPV-associated oropharyngeal cancer: analysis of more than 2000 assessments in 232 patients.

Jabłońska IA, et al

A prospective study of 232 patients with HPV-positive oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma or carcinoma of unknown primary demonstrated that serial blood-based ctHPV DNA monitoring via quantitative PCR detects disease recurrence with 90.3% sensitivity and 97.9% specificity, and preceded clinical confirmation of relapse in 58.1% of recurrent cases across 2,928 total assessments. ctHPV DNA positivity measured one month after completing radiotherapy-based treatment was a powerful independent predictor of outcomes, associated with a hazard ratio of 19.1 (95% CI 7.5–48.8) for overall survival and 15.4 (95% CI 6.7–35.4) for disease-free survival. The high negative predictive value of 98.4% means a negative test result reliably identifies patients at very low short-term risk of recurrence, supporting the potential integration of ctHPV DNA surveillance into routine post-treatment follow-up.

Oral oncology

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2026-09-07

Clinicopathologic features and molecular characterization of oropharyngeal carcinomas harboring low-risk human papillomavirus.

Kmeid M, et al

A case series of 4 oropharyngeal carcinomas (OC) harboring transcriptionally active low-risk human papillomavirus (LR-HPV) has been described, expanding the known spectrum of HPV-associated lesions in the oropharynx. The tumors occurred in 3 men and 1 woman with a mean age of 67.8 years; all showed papillary/exophytic architecture, 2 demonstrated overt stromal invasion, and all tested positive for LR-HPV RNA by in situ hybridization while remaining negative for high-risk HPV, with p16 immunohistochemistry negative in 3 cases and equivocal in 1. Molecular sequencing of 2 cases confirmed HPV6 DNA and additionally identified alterations in TERT, PIK3CA, FAT1, KRAS, and EP300 — genes commonly associated with HPV-independent squamous cell carcinoma. These findings establish that rare OCs can harbor transcriptionally active LR-HPV alongside a molecular profile overlapping conventional carcinoma, posing diagnostic challenges due to morphologic overlap with squamous papilloma, Schneiderian-like papilloma, adenosquamous carcinoma, mucoepidermoid carcinoma, and DEK::AFF2-rearranged carcinoma.

Annals of diagnostic pathology

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