robotic

Head-and-neck surgeons buoyant about new, just-right robot

Source: newsroom.uw.edu Author: Brian Donohue You know how great it feels when someone makes a pie or cake just for you? University of Washington Medicine head and neck surgeons have been feeling that kind of love lately, and on Feb. 5 they shared the first slice, so to speak, with patient Steven Higley. Surgical assistants work near patient Steven Higley on Feb. 5. Lead surgeon Jeff Houlton is obscured by the robotics. The cake in this story is actually a da Vinci robotic-assist system built especially for head and neck procedures. It is easier to maneuver than the robotic device they’ve used for the past decade, which was designed for operations to the chest and abdomen. Higley underwent surgery to have a cancerous tonsil and part of his throat removed. Sitting at a console a few feet from the patient, Dr. Jeff Houlton manipulated the miniature surgical tools emanating from the robot’s single port, positioned just outside Higley’s open mouth. It was UW Medicine’s first trans-oral surgery with the new tool. “If you think about laparoscopic surgery in the belly area, robotics provides the advantage of multiple mechanical arms approaching from different angles,” Houlton said. “But it’s a challenge to have three robotic arms that all need to go through a patient’s mouth. With this machine, the three arms are designed to come through one garden hose-like entry port and then articulate out from there. “Pretty interesting, though, that in the past 10 years we built a nationally [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2021-02-12T18:43:12-07:00February, 2021|Oral Cancer News|

Transoral robotic surgery showed good oncologic, functional outcomes

Source: Author: Christen Haigh Patients with head and neck cancers treated with transoral robotic surgery — or TORS — had good disease control, disease free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS), according to the findings of a preliminary study presented at the Multidisciplinary Head and Neck Cancer Symposium in Chandler, Ariz. “Disease control and survival rates using TORS appeared to be equivalent or near equivalent to those rates reported with chemoradiation, but with TORS, we need better functional outcome,” Eric Genden, MD, chief of the division of head and neck oncology at Mount Sinai Medical Center, New York, said during the presentation of the results. To determine the role of TORS in the treatment of oropharyngeal cancer, researchers prospectively evaluated patterns of failure, survival and functional outcomes of 25 patients treated with TORS and compared them with that of 12 patients treated with combined chemoradiation. The one-year locoregional control was 95%; distant control was 96%; DFS was 86% and OS was 86%. There was one local failure, one distant failure, one second primary failure and one comorbid death. Patients who received TORS had less acute toxicity two weeks after treatment vs. patients who received chemoradiotherapy. The TORS group had better eating ability than the chemoradiotherapy group (74% vs. 52%) and had improved diet vs. the chemoradiotherapy group (43% vs. 20%). Thus, TORS was associated with a higher overall functional oral intake scale score vs. that of the chemoradiotherapy group (5.3 vs. 3.2). Both groups had a score of 100% for [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2010-03-05T07:43:24-07:00March, 2010|Oral Cancer News|

CyberKnife to be focus of numerous presentations at the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) annual meeting

Source: www.reuters.com Author: press release Accuray Incorporated, a global leader in the field of radiosurgery, announced today that 28 CyberKnife-focused abstracts have been accepted as part of the 51st Annual Meeting of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO), taking place November 1 - 5 in Chicago, Illinois. This represents a 27 percent increase in CyberKnife abstracts over last year's Annual Meeting. The accepted abstracts, which will be presented as posters or oral presentations, focus on the use of the CyberKnife® Robotic Radiosurgery System to treat tumors located throughout the body including the prostate, lung, brain, spine, liver, pancreas, head and neck. "The depth and breadth of research presented at this year's ASTRO meeting is a testament to the growing clinical acceptance of the CyberKnife System and the important role it is playing in the treatment of cancer," said Euan Thomson, Ph.D., president and CEO of Accuray. Highlights of the research that will be showcased include seven presentations focusing on the use of CyberKnife radiosurgery to treat prostate cancer. CyberKnife prostate procedures from July-September 2009 increased 21 percent over the same period the previous year, confirming the increasing demand for this treatment option. To date, CyberKnife radiosurgery has been used to treat more than 4,000 men with prostate cancer. Additionally, Accuray will host a number of presentations in the company's booth reporting on experience with CyberKnife radiosurgery. Presenters include Eric Lartigau, M.D., Ph.D., from Centre Oscar Lambret; Xiaodong Wu, Ph.D., from University of Miami; Donald B. Fuller, M.D., from CyberKnife [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2009-10-31T10:06:44-07:00October, 2009|Oral Cancer News|