Transoral robotic surgery (TORS) for benign pharyngeal lesions

Abstract

Transoral robotic surgery (TORS) offers a minimally invasive approach to the pharynx with a magnified 3-dimensional view, wristed instruments with 7 degrees of freedom, and tremor filtration. TORS affords an excellent approach to benign lesions of the pharynx. This article is grouped into subsites of the nasopharynx, oropharynx, and hypopharynx, addressing patient setup, surgical technique, and postoperative management of each subsite. Although TORS has been described primarily for resection of malignant lesions of the pharynx, the setup, exposure, and anatomy described herein are identical for benign lesions, the difference being the magnitude of resection.

Keywords: Benign; Hypopharynx; Minimally invasive; Nasopharynx; Oropharynx; Robot; TORS; Transoral robotic surgery.