Influence of Smoking History on Imaging Characteristics Among Patients With Human Papillomavirus-Positive Oropharyngeal Cancer: A Blinded Matched-Pair Analysis

ConclusionsAmong the patients with HPV-positive oropharyngeal cancer, no imaging characteristics were identified to correlate with the critical prognostic feature smoking status. Cystic and necrotic nodal metastases, as described previously, were more common among the patients with HPV-positive than those with HPV-negative oropharyngeal cancers. Although cystic nodal metastases were more common among the never/light smokers with HPV-positive oropharyngeal cancer than among smokers with HPV-positive oropharyngeal cancer, however, because these results did not reach statistical significance, we concluded that the imaging results cannot serve as a surrogate for an HPV-driven phenotype.
Source: Journal of Computer Assisted Tomography - Category: Radiology Tags: Neuroradiology Source Type: research