Current approaches to salvage surgery for head and neck cancer: A comprehensive review

Romina Mastronicola (1, 2) , Pauline Le Roux (2) , Aurore Casse (2) , Sophie Cortese (2) , Emilie Beulque (2) , Marco Perna , Gilles Dolivet (2, 1)

1 CRAN - Centre de Recherche en Automatique de Nancy
2 UNICANCER/ICL - Institut de Cancérologie de Lorraine - Alexis Vautrin [Nancy]

Salvage surgeries of head and neck cancer are often complicated and do not always show decent results. This type of procedure is tough on the patient, as many crucial organs can be affected. A long period of reeducation usually follows the surgery because of the need to rehabilitate functions such as speech or swallowing. In order to lighten the journey of the patients, it is important to develop new technologies and techniques to ease the surgery and limit its damages. This seems even more crucial since progress has been made in the past years, allowing more salvage therapy to take place. This article aims at showing the available tools and procedures for salvage surgeries, such as transoral robotic surgery, free-flap surgery, sentinel node mapping, and many others, that help the work of the medical team to operate or obtain a better understanding of the status of the cancer when taken in charge. Yet, the surgical procedure is not the only thing determining the outcome of the operation. The patient themself and their cancer history also play an important part in the care and must be acknowledged.

Mots clés: head and neck cancer; salvage surgery; free flap; transoral robotic surgery; navigation surgery; sentinel node mapping

Domaines: Cancer; Chirurgie

Romina Mastronicola, Pauline Le Roux, Aurore Casse, Sophie Cortese, Emilie Beulque, et al.. Current approaches to salvage surgery for head and neck cancer: A comprehensive review. Cancers, 2023, 15 (9), pp.2625. ⟨10.3390/cancers15092625⟩. ⟨hal-04543649⟩