Notwithstanding a potentially reduced expression of ATM, Lim et al. have not observed an association with patient outcome after chemoradiation treatment [7] and others even reported inferior outcome for patients and enhanced radioresistance in HNSCC cell lines with loss of distal 11q despite the controversial finding of an attenuated DDR [8, 9]. The gene discussed is ATM; the disease is head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.