We further stratified data based on the expression levels of individual glycolysis markers and found that higher expression levels of GLUT1 (HR = 1.94, 95% CI: 1.57-2.39, P < 0.001), MCT4 (HR = 3.64, 95% CI: 1.60-8.29, P = 0.002), HK2 (HR = 2.05, 95% CI: 1.29-3.26, P = 0.002), and PKM2 (HR = 2.92, 95% CI: 1.85-4.59, P < 0.001) correlated with poorer OS in HNSCC patients. Here, HK2 is linked to head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.