ECP 2026: Is HPV-Specific Testing Optimized in Throat Cancer?

Cost and turnaround times are a potential challenge to standardization of testing and optimization of patient pathways

September 14, 2026
2 min

The Pathologist

Objective:

To investigate the current practice of HPV-specific testing in oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma among head and neck pathologists in the UK and Ireland.

Approach:

Survey Methodology: A survey was conducted among consultant head and neck pathologists in the UK and Ireland, receiving forty-four valid responses.

Key Findings:

100% of respondents had access to P16 immunohistochemistry in-house.
91% had access to HPV-specific testing, primarily PCR, but only 25% had it in-house.
Median turnaround time for HPV-specific testing was 14 days compared to 2 days for P16 immunohistochemistry.
36% of respondents requested HPV-specific testing based on clinical suspicion.

Limitations:

The survey had a limited number of respondents (44), which may not represent all practices.
Responses were predominantly from England, potentially skewing the results.