• 4/22/2007
  • Topeka, KS
  • staff
  • 49news (www.49abcnews.com)

“This is about as good as you’re gonna get on this TV,” Charlie Osborne said.

Osborne is grateful technology’s improved over the years. But he never appreciated it more than during his recent battle with throat cancer.

“They would have had to cut out my voice box. That was the only other option. If this happened four years ago, that was still the standard procedure,” Osborne said.

He had a tumor in his neck the size of a golf ball. Typically, doctors would perform radical surgery to remove it.

“He would have had a tracheotomy, at least temporarily, an opening in the neck. And he would have ended up having a feeding tube in his stomach because he was having so much trouble with his swallowing,” head and neck surgeon Dr. Miriam Lango said.

Instead, Dr. Lango used a minimally invasive procedure called transoral laser surgery.

“We can access tumors not through the neck, but actually through the mouth,” Lango said.

The carbon dioxide laser is an intense beam of energy that cuts and seals the tissue simultaneously.

“You are able to cut very precisely without having blood in your field. So you can really distinguish between normal tissue and tumor tissue,” Lango said.

Because the laser is less invasive, patients have a lower risk of infection and a faster recovery.

“Patients have much less trouble with swallowing and with speech. Often times the speech is almost normal after the surgery,” Lango said.

Dr. Lango used the laser to cut away as much of Charlie’s tumor as she could. Chemotherapy and radiation took care of the rest.

“I feel great. I put my weight back on, some weight back on and things seem to be going pretty well,” Osborne said.

Now in fine voice, he’s on the road to recovery.

Dr. Lango says the type of treatment depends on the extent of the tumor. Patients facing head and neck surgery should first ask their doctor if he or she is experienced in the laser procedure. Then discuss if it is an option for them.

Fast Facts:
-About 55,000 Americans will develop some type of head and neck cancer this year.

-Nearly 13,000 will die from it.

-The main type of treatment, surgery, can be very extensive and disfiguring.

-A newer procedure, called transoral laser surgery, uses a laser to remove the tumor from inside the body.

More information is available from the American Academy of Otolaryngology, the American Cancer Society or the National Cancer Institute.