ABSTRACT
Robot-assisted head and neck surgery has its inception since 1972. It was the time when the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) started investigating and research about various methods to render quality surgical care for astronauts in orbit with the help of telepresence surgery. Weinstein et al. were the pioneers for introducing transoral robotic surgery (TORS) when they published a case series of patients with supraglottic laryngectomy in a canine model and then MacLeod and Melder et al. reported the surgical excision of a vallecular cyst in a human patient with a total setup time of 75 minutes and a surgical time of 30 minutes. Since the literature was published, the development of TORS has continued to progress systematically and many other research and clinical trials on TORS in animal models, human patients, and various sites for HNC sites have also been published in the literature.
With its due possibility of obtaining a superior, clear visualization and favoring complete resection of tumors with adequate surgical margins, TORS seems to represent a very good option for open or microscopic/endoscopic approaches in oropharyngeal and laryngeal cancers, particularly with 5-mm endoscopic instruments that help in improved vision, which increases the ease of removal, and a shorter time of surgery.
