OC-0489: TAM and HLA class I expression in relation to HPV and clinical outcome in head and neck cancer

S251 ESTRO 37other two signatures do also show increased HR values (albeit not significant) further supporting the role of EMT in HNSCC prognosis.Remarkably, these signatures only reached consensus for 55 out of 95 samples.Sub-analyses show that the prognostic value for the signatures was reduced in these remaining discordantly classified samples.In an attempt to optimize the EMT signatures for HNSCC, we therefore used the consensus samples to train a new classifier and tested it on the subgroup of discordantly classified patients.We show that this classifier was prognostic for distant metastasis-free survival in these samples (HR 10.6 ; p=0.004). Fig 1. The prognostic value of expression based EMT signatures in our HPV negative HNSCC cohort (n=96).Signatures are indicated by the first author of their respective publications.*: p= <0.05 **: p= <0.01 Conclusion HPV negative HNSCC patients with tumors that score high for EMT features showed increased metastasis rates, independent of known clinical risk factors.This suggests that biomarkers for EMT would be a valuable addition to estimate risks of metastasis in the clinic.