• 10/18/2006
  • Orlando, FL
  • staff
  • wftv.com

Throat and neck cancer surgeries can leave patients with serious side effects such as scars and speech problems.

But with the help of a robot, two surgeons are the first in the world to treat these types of cancers without making even one incision.

John McCauley had tongue cancer surgery 20 years ago. And she recently had to have it again.

“The recovery from my first surgery for tongue cancer was… very raw. It was a raw area, it was tender, and it was quite painfull to be honest,” she said.

But the second time, a robot did much of the work. In the past, surgeons cut across the throat to remove the tumor. But the robot operates in the mouth so the incisions are small and are made on the inside of the body.

“Now, we do remove the entire tumor but we don’t have to do things such as wide incisions on the neck or breaking or splitting the jaw bone and moving the tongue aside,” said Dr. Bert O’Malley Jr., a head & neck surgeon.

“The robot allows me to move my hands on the joysticks of the robotic console, and it’s as if my hands were made this small, and I could get them right into the mouth to do the operation,” he said.

Two surgeons partner on each operation. One operates the console, one is by the patient’s side. Patients lose less blood and can actually talk and swallow more easily after the robotic surgery because there’s no cutting.

“We are now being able to do the surgery with decreased side effects.”

Surgeries such as this used to take up to 15 hours. Now, with the robot, they take about three.

There are an estimated 50,000 cases of throat and neck cancer annually. To date, the doctors have performed more than 60 robotic surgeries on the disease.