Table 3.

Differences in the composition of the TME and its clinical relevance in HPV⁺ and HPV^- HNSCC lesions.

	HPV−		HPV+		Reference
immune cells/markers	frequency	clinical relevance	frequency	clinical relevance	[38]
CD4/CD8 TILs	low	improve when present	high	good prognosis	[39]
activation markers	low	bad	high	good prognosis	[40]
Treg	low		high	ratio CD8/Treg good outcome	[41]
NK cells (CD56dim)	high	improved prognosis when present	high	improved prognosis	[42]
B cells	low	n.a.	high	improved prognosis	[43]
M1/M2 ratio	low	worse outcome	high	good outcome	[44] [45]
MDSC	increased	increased metastasis	increased	increased metastasis	[46,47]
PD1/PD-L1	low		increased	increased metastasis	[48]