Human Papillomavirus–Associated Oropharyngeal Cancer: Defining Risk Groups and Clinical Trials

Understanding personal risk of oropharyngeal cancer: risk-groups for oncogenic oral HPV infection and oropharyngeal cancer.

Background Incidence of human papillomavirus (HPV)-related oropharyngeal cancer is increasing. There is interest in identifying healthy individuals most at risk for development of oropharyngeal cancer to inform screening strategies. Patients and methods All data are from 2009 to 2014, including 13 089 people ages 20-69 in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), orophary...

Human Papillomavirusassociated Cancers as Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome Defining Illnesses

The Centers for Disease Control currently report cervical, vulvar, vaginal, anal and some head and neck cancers as human papillomavirus (HPV)-associated cancers. Only cervical cancer is listed amongst acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) defining illnesses. All of these cancers may represent progression of the immunocompromised state with the inability to eradicate viral infection. This st...

Clinical trials in relapsed prostate cancer: defining the target.

A re-examination of the methods of developing new treatments for patients with prostate cancer whose disease has progressed during hormone therapy is necessitated by the following: 1) the impact of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) testing on patient selection, 2) the increasing number of studies using noncytotoxic approaches, and 3) the lack of validated methods to report outcomes. PSA monitorin...

Clinical Trials in Oncology and Defining Benefit

In the editorial “The Evolution of Clinical Trials in Oncology: Defining Who Benefits from New Drugs Using Innovative Study Designs” [1], Goldberg et al. nicely discuss many changing aspects of clinical trial design in oncology. However, I believe their title is misleading. No study will define “who benefits” but only who might benefit. For example, human epidermal growth receptor 2 overexpress...

Human Papillomavirus and Oropharyngeal Cancer