The VOYAGER (Human Papillomavirus, Oral and Oropharyngeal Cancer Genomic Research) programme was funded by the United States National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR; R01 DE025712; Principal Investigators: Dr Paul Brennan, Dr Brenda Diergaarde, and Dr D. Neil Hayes) and was implemented from 2017 to 2022.

VOYAGER is a collaboration between five large studies in North America and Europe on head and neck cancer: (a) the Carolina Head and Neck Cancer Epidemiology (CHANCE) Study (North Carolina, USA), (b) the University of Pittsburgh case–control study on head and neck cancer (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA), (c) the Toronto Mount Sinai-Princess Margaret (MSH-PMH) Head and Neck Cancer Study (Ontario, Canada), (d) the Head and Neck 5000 (HN5000) study (United Kingdom), and (e) the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) ARCAGE study (Europe).

VOYAGER used samples and data from a total of more than 10 000 patients to learn more about the role of genetic factors in risk and prognosis of oral cavity cancer and oropharyngeal cancer. Genotype information for more than half of the patients was available from an earlier project. Demographic and clinical data collected by the five studies were harmonized. Blood samples collected at diagnosis were used to determine whether patients had human papillomavirus (HPV) infection-associated oropharyngeal cancer, and tumours from more than 1800 patients were sequenced. Based on the studies conducted as part of VOYAGER, more is now known about the inherited genetic variants that affect risk of oral cavity cancer and HPV infection-associated oropharyngeal cancer, the somatic alterations that are present in oral cavity and oropharyngeal tumours, and how inherited genetic variants and somatic alterations in the tumour affect disease outcome.