These findings in context of recent papers by Suzuki et al. [26] and Schoetz et al. [27], highlighting the relevance of through-irradiation-induced, pro-inflammatory, and senescence-associated cytokines (like IL-6) and their role in radioresistance of HNSCC, enhance our comprehension of the pathophysiological mechanisms linking smoking and inferior outcomes of smokers when their tumor was irradiated. The gene discussed is IL6; the disease is head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.