The long-term oncological and functional outcomes of transoral robotic surgery in patients with hypopharyngeal cancer

Hypopharyngeal cancer has the worst prognosis of all head-and-neck cancers. Despite the introduction of various new treatment modalities, the survival rate has not changed significantly over the past several decades [1–3]. Moreover, radical surgery, such as laryngopharyngectomy with reconstruction of the pharynx, can reduce a patient's quality of life after surgery, because it inevitably causes loss of normal speech and swallowing function [1,4–6]. Meanwhile, concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CCRTx), which is used as an organ preservation strategy, could preserve organ function with comparable oncologic results compared to conventional radical surgery [7–9].

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