Head and neck cancers belong to the most common malignancies worldwide and the oral cavity is one of the mostly affected subsites within this heterogeneous group of different tumor entities including squamous cell carcinomas (OSCC) and salivary gland carcinomas among others. Metastases and locoregional disease recurrence are the main predicting factors for adverse clinical outcome and oral cancer is responsible for about 1-2% of all cancer related deaths in developed countries. For OSCC 5-year survival rates having remained at 40-60% over the last decades despite interdisciplinary multi-modal treatment. Although, the introduction of immune checkpoint inhibition has brought new therapeutic options for patients with recurrent or metastatic head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC), accurate biomarkers allowing for distinct risk-stratification and individualization of therapy and follow-up for patients are still limited. Such markers might help to identify patients at risk of tumor progression, who may benefit from a more intensive interdisciplinary multi-modality therapy.

Therefore, our working group focuses on the investigation of prognostic markers for oral cancers using novel techniques like digital pathology analysis of tissue samples and ex-vivo culture models in a large cohort of different surgically treated oral malignancies.