We performed transoral robotic surgery (TORS) or conventional surgery via a transoral or mandibulotomy approach in patients with tonsillar cancer and prospectively analyzed the oncologic outcomes and functional recovery of the 3 groups.Between May 2008 and October 2011, 57 patients were enrolled in this prospective study.Although there was no significant difference in the survival rate of the TORS group (100%) and the conventional surgery group (96.7%), a higher rate of margin negativity was observed in the TORS group, especially in cases in which the tumor extends inferiorly. Patients who received TORS or conventional transoral procedures showed more rapid recovery of swallowing, shorter hospitalization, and shorter operation time than the mandibulotomy group.Despite the weakness of this nonrandomized trial and the differences in T classification, TORS seemed to have distinct advantages over conventional transoral surgery and other conventional open surgery, but further studies are needed.
Clinical implications of neoadjuvant immunotherapy in patients with locally advanced but resectable head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) remain largely unexplored.
Objectives: In order to reduce treatment-related morbidity rates and increase patients' quality of life, robot-assisted surgery using the da Vinci surgical system (Intuitive Surgical Inc, Sunnyvale, California) has been studied actively in the field of head and neck surgery. This study analyzes our experiences therewith in order to evaluate the feasibility and efficacy of robot-assisted surgery via a transoral approach in the head and neck area. Methods: Between April 2008 and December 2011, 141 patients were treated with robot-assisted surgery via a transoral approach. Results: Robot-assisted surgeries were successfully completed via a transoral approach in all patients. The mean robotic operative time was 69.3 minutes, and the mean time for setup of the robotic system was 10.4 minutes. The average blood loss during the operation was 29.6 mL (range, 0 to 300 mL). Patients who underwent robot-assisted surgery were satisfied with their cosmetic results and treatment outcomes. Conclusions: Robot-assisted surgery via a transoral approach was confirmed to be feasible and efficient in the field of head and neck surgery. Further research is needed to investigate the long-term functional and oncological results of robot-assisted surgery.
The purpose of this study was to evaluate the clinical outcomes of patients treated with radiotherapy (RT) for a carcinoma of the external auditory canal (EAC) and middle ear.The records of 32 patients who received RT from 1990 to 2013 were reviewed retrospectively. The Pittsburgh classification was used to stage all the cancers (early stage, T1/T2 [n=12]; advanced stage, T3/T4 or N positive [n=20]). Twenty-one patients (65.6%) were treated with postoperative RT and 11 patients (34.4%) were treated with definitive RT. The median radiation doses for postoperative and definitive RT were 60 Gy and 64.8 Gy, respectively. Chemotherapy was administered to seven patients (21.9%).The 5-year overall survival and disease-free survival rates for all patients were 57% and 52%, respectively. The disease control rates for the patients with early stage versus advanced stage carcinomawere 55.6% (5/9) and 50% (6/12) in the postoperative RT group and 66.7% (2/3) and 37.5% (3/8) in the definitive RT group, respectively. Overall, 15 cases (14 patients, 46.7%) experienced treatment failure; these failures were classified as local in four cases, regional in one case, and distant in 10 cases. The median follow-up period after RT was 51 months (range, 7 to 286 months).Patients with early stage carcinoma achieved better outcomes when definitive RT was used. Advanced stage carcinoma patients experienced better outcomes with postoperative RT. The high rate of distant failure after RT, with or without surgery, reflected the lack of a consensus regarding the best therapeutic approach for treating carcinoma of the EAC and middle ear.
Flail chest is a severe injury to the chest wall and is related to adverse outcomes. A flail chest is classified as the physiologic, paradoxical motion of a chest wall or flail segment of rib fracture (RFX). We hypothesized that patients with paradoxical chest wall movement would present different clinical features from patients with a flail segment. This retrospective observational study included patients with blunt chest trauma who visited our level 1 trauma center between January 2019 and October 2022 and were diagnosed with one or more flail segments by computed tomography. The primary outcome of our study was a clinically diagnosed visible, paradoxical chest wall motion. We used the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) logistic regression model to minimize overfitting. After a feature selection using the LASSO regression model, we constructed a multivariable logistic regression (MLR) model and nomogram. A total of five risk factors were selected in the LASSO model and applied to the multivariable logistic regression model. Of these, four risk factors were statistically significant: the total number of RFX (adjusted OR [aOR], 1.28; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.09-1.49; p = 0.002), number of segmental RFX including Grade III fractures (aOR, 1.78; 95% CI, 1.14-2.79; p = 0.012), laterally located primary fracture lines (aOR, 4.00; 95% CI, 1.69-9.43; p = 0.002), and anterior-lateral flail segments (aOR, 4.20; 95% CI, 1.60-10.99; p = 0.004). We constructed a nomogram to predict the personalized probability of the flail motion. A novel nomogram was developed in patients with flail segments of traumatic RFX to predict paradoxical chest wall motion. The number of RFX, Grade III segmental RFX, and the location of the RFX were significant risk factors.