Source: www.postbulletin.com
Author: staff

People heal faster with robotic throat-cancer surgery and have no major complications, Mayo Clinic research shows.

The part of the throat behind the mouth can be difficult to reach for surgeons, says a Mayo statement.

Surgery for throat tumor removal typically requires a hospital stay of seven to 10 days. But researchers say using a “da Vinci robotic surgical system” instead of traditional surgery led to average hospital stays of 2.3 days for 45 patients studied. Robotic surgery is now Mayo’s “technique of choice” after more than 100 such procedures, Moore said.

“The results of this research were even more positive than we expected. We found great advantages to using transoral robotic surgery for tonsil and base-of-the-tongue cancers,” said head and neck surgeon Dr. Eric Moore.