What is the best test to determine HPV status for SCC?

Good question. According to the new (8th) edition of the AJCC staging manual, and ACP, they recommend that you initially test for p16 only, for it is a good surrogate marker for HPV involvement. Further, as I recall, HPV testing maybe done if you suspect it is a negative p16 result, for example. Tha...

The short answer is, p16. It is a better marker of HPV-driven disease than HPV-FISH is. HPV-FISH expression can be lost during oncogenesis, and some data shows the test is more error-prone than p16 immunohistochemistry. In addition, p16 status may better capture oncogenesis from all HPV-subtypes, wh...

Pathologists should be reflexively test for p16 in all oropharynx cases. It's incorporated into the AJCC 8th edition staging, effective as of this past Jan