In light of these findings and our recent observations that YB-1-based virotherapy kills cancer stem cells equipped with nuclear YB-1 expression (Mantwill et al, 2011; manuscript submitted to Stem Cells), we suggest that YB-1 analysis in conjunction with YB-1 based virotherapy represents an attractive therapeutic strategy for a multimodal treatment concept for high-risk subgroup of HNSCC patients. Here, YBX1 is linked to cancer.