Impact of gender on the association between marital status and head and neck cancer outcomes

•We examined gender’s impact on association between marital status and HNC outcomes.•Gender impacted marital status vs. stage of presentation; cancer-specific survival.•Married males significantly benefited from their marital status than females.•Unmarried males more likely to present with advanced stage disease than females.•Independent of gender, married survivors more likely to receive adequate treatment. To determine whether the impact of marital status on head and neck cancer (HNC) outcomes vary by gender. The Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results 18 database from 2007 to 2014 was queried for eligible cases of HNC (n = 71,799). An interaction term (gender*marital status) was tested for each outcome of interest (cancer-specific survival, stage of presentation, adequate treatment), and when significant (p