Although there have been a number of studies investigating the expression of TIM-3 in various tumors (Peng et al., 2017; Zhang et al., 2017; Burugu et al., 2018), the results remain inconclusive in HNSCC, and the relationship between TIM-3 expression and prognosis remains unclear. Here, HAVCR2 is linked to head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.