Tanaka H, Suzuki M, Takemoto N, et al. - This work suggests the promising value of circulating tumor HPV16 DNA (ctHPV16DNA) in blood samples for diagnosing HPV16-related oropharyngeal cancer (OPC).

• HPV DNA and mRNA in oral gargle samples and ctHPV16DNA in blood samples were evaluated for their diagnostic performance.

• Included were 74 patients with OPC and eight patients with cancer of unknown primary (CUP).

• Relative to oral biomarkers, ctHPV16DNA showed higher sensitivity for HPV16-related OPC, although there was no statistically significant difference.

• In patients with HPV16-related OPC/CUP, there appeared a remarkable correlation of ctHPV16DNA with the anatomic extent of disease, total metabolic tumor volume, and HPV16 copy number per tumor genome.