Giuliano AR, et al. - Given the significantly increasing incidence of oropharyngeal cancer (OPC) among men that often requires intensive therapy causing significant morbidity, researchers assessed markers for early detection of OPC, so that monotherapy can be safely delivered with lower treatment-associated morbidity while maintaining high cure rates. One hundred and one pre-treatment male OPC cases matched 1:1 to 101 disease-free controls for age and smoking history were studied. They collected oral gargles from cases and controls and obtained additional biopsies or aspirates from cases. The analysis suggests the possible utility of measuring methylation biomarkers in oral gargles for recognizing OPC early. Cases vs controls exhibited significantly higher EPB41L3 and HPV 16 L1, L2, and E2 methylation, irrespective of early vs late disease. In a logistic regression analysis, combining HPV 16 genes and EPB41L3 methylation status resulted in a sensitivity of 70.3% and a specificity of 90.9% in detecting OPC from an oral gargle.