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Transoral Robotic Surgery Cuts Patient Recovery Time

Transoral Robotic Surgery Cuts Patient Recovery Time
by Carolina Pickens

Oral cancer is diagnosed in almost 50,000 Americans each year and has a 57 percent survivability rate past five years, according to research from the Oral Cancer Foundation.

The number of diagnoses has been fairly constant in oral and pharyngeal cancer for decades, but survivability has actually gone up slightly in the last 10 years. This can be attributed to the increasing percentage of patients with dental insurance attending annual appointments (when oral cancer is most often recognized and diagnosed earlier), the spread of HPV-related oral cancer (which is easier to treat) and advances in diagnostic tools for dentists and oral specialists.

These advancements aren't limited to recognizing oral and throat cancer; strides in scientific approaches for surgical treatment are changing the way specialists treat oral phalangeal cancers. For example, Nepean Hospital of New South Wales has seen drastic improvement in patients' quality of life and surgical recovery time by performing transoral robotic surgery (TORS) with the da Vinci System.

This technology provides surgeons the tools needed to perform successful, minimally-invasive surgeries for patients with T1 or T2 throat cancers.

"Without the robot, tongue and throat cancers are among the most difficult tumors to surgically remove," said Dr. Chin, an otolaryngology, head and neck surgeon at the hospital.

Read full article on MultiBriefs.