In summary, we investigated the role of EIF3C in pharyngeal squamous carcinoma and nasopharyngeal carcinoma cells, and combined with animal models, we found that down-regulation of EIF3C could inhibit tumor progression in head and neck cancer, which provides a basis for evaluating EIF3C as a potential diagnostic or prognostic marker of head and neck cancer. Here, EIF3C is linked to head and neck cancer.