Transoral Robotic Surgery Newest Treatment Option for Oropharyngeal Cancers

Treatment of oropharyngeal cancers, which has seen major changes over the years, may be on the brink of yet another development. The newest treatment option on the block is tumor removal using state-of-the-art robotic technology. Several factors have played into the trend, one of which is the availability of the daVinci robotic surgical system (Intuitive Surgical, Sunnyvale, Calif.) at hospitals, because the technology has become useful to other departments, such as urology and thoracic surgery. Equally important, though, is the changing nature of oropharyngeal cancers.

The Rise of HPV

Oropharyngeal cancers caused by human papillomavirus (HPV) infections are on the rise. A 2011 study analyzed tumors collected by three cancer registry sites for traces of HPV infection and then projected those findings onto the U.S. population. Their results found an incidence rate of 0.8 HPV-positive oropharyngeal cancers per 100,000 in 1984. By 2004, that rate had more than tripled to 2.6 per 100,000 (J Clin Oncol. 2011;29:4294-4301).