Fullerton ZH, Butler SS, Mahal BA, et al. - Using a custom Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results dataset with human papillomavirus (HPV) status, researchers focused on the causes as well as risks of short-term mortality in patients with oropharynx cancer (OPC) and investigated how these risks vary by HPV status. Participants included 4,930 patients with OPC who received a diagnosis of nonmetastatic (M0) disease from 2013 to 2014. HPV-positive and HPV-negative patients were 3,560 (72.2%) and 1,370, in total, respectively. Lower risk of 2-year cumulative incidence of all-cause death and a lower risk of both head and neck cancer (HNC)-specific mortality and competing-cause mortality was noted in HPV-positive patients vs HPV-negative patients. Significantly distinct rates of both HNC mortality and competing mortality were revealed in patients with HPV-positive and HPV-negative OPC. A substantial risk of competing mortality was evident among HPV-negative patients, even within 2 years of cancer diagnosis.