VEGFA and head and neck squamous cell carcinoma: We calculated and visualized the enrichment score of the VEGF signaling pathway (Additional file 1), and divided HNSCC patients into two VEGF pathway score subtypes with median cutoff: the VEGF-low score subtype with the bottom half score (n = 127 in HPV-negative HNSCC and n = 29 in HPV-positive HNSCC) and the VEGF-high score subtype with the top half score (n = 128 in HPV-negative HNSCC and n = 29 in HPV-positive HNSCC).