All five genes of our prognostic signature (NCEH1, DDIT4, ITGB4, FADD, and TIMP1) were significantly up-regulated DEGs from tumors in matched pairs of HNSCC and normal tissue from TCGA data (Fig. 4F; |log2FC|> 0.5, p-value ≤ 0.05). This evidence concerns the gene FADD and head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.