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The mechanisms underlying the association between chronic stress and higher mortality among individuals with cancer remain incompletely understood.

To test the hypotheses that among individuals with active head and neck cancer, that higher stress-associated neural activity (ie. metabolic amygdalar activity [AmygA]) at cancer staging associates with survival.

Retrospective cohort study.

Academic Medical Center (Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston).

240 patients with head and neck cancer (HNCA) who underwent ¹⁸F-FDG-PET/CT imaging as part of initial cancer staging.

¹⁸F-FDG uptake in the amygdala was determined by placing circular regions of interest in the right and left amygdalae and measuring the mean tracer accumulation (i.e., standardized uptake value [SUV]) in each region of interest. Amygdalar uptake was corrected for background cerebral activity (mean temporal lobe SUV).

Among individuals with HNCA (age 59±13 years; 30% female), 67 died over a median follow-up period of 3 years (IQR: 1.7–5.1). AmygA associated with heightened bone marrow activity, leukocytosis, and C-reactive protein (P<0.05 each). In adjusted and unadjusted analyses, AmygA associated with subsequent mortality (HR [95% CI]: 1.35, [1.07–1.70], P = 0.009); the association persisted in stratified subset analyses restricted to patients with advanced cancer stage (P<0.001). Individuals within the highest tertile of AmygA experienced a 2-fold higher mortality rate compared to others (P = 0.01). The median progression-free survival was 25 months in patients with …