GZMA and neoplasm: To characterize the immune microenvironment in SCCOT, the most common SCCHN subtype, we used transcriptome data analysis to estimate immune cell fractions and evaluated cytolytic activity according to mRNA levels of GZMA and PFR1. We show altered immune infiltration and increased cytolytic activity in tumor samples and in clinically tumor‐free tongue samples from patients with SCCOT compared to normal tongue from healthy individuals.