A similar relationship has been observed in triple negative breast cancer54 and we therefore investigated this relationship further; initially interrogating the link between EGFR protein levels and TILs in two HNSCC cohorts (n = 518)19,28 we found that samples classified as EGFR high and moderate were significantly more likely to be TIL low than EGFR low cancers after accounting for anatomic site and HPV status (Fig. 5e, p < 0.05 and 0.01 for EGFR moderate and high cancers, logistic regression). Here, EGFR is linked to cancer.