As it was previously reported that patients with HNSCC HPV negative and TP53 mutated cancer exhibit shorter overall survival (OS) and disease free survival (DFS) [20], we next performed a Kaplan Meyer analysis on data obtained from TCGA database, which revealed that lower TMPRSS2 expression associated with shorter OS and DFS in HNSCC patients (Fig. 2d-e). Here, TP53 is linked to cancer.