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The philosophy of management at the University of Pennsylvania is based on a comprehensive approach. Rather than abandoning “surgery” our goals have been to both utilize and create state of the art surgical techniques, many of which were not available twenty five years ago, and judiciously help patients choose between these modern surgical and non-surgical approaches.

Building upon this approach we have initiated and completed numerous non-surgical chemoradiation trials here at Penn which were adopted nationally as multi-institutional trials. Despite providing state of the art non-surgical options for our patients, we have never abandoned surgical approaches to preserve critical voice and swallowing function.

Gregory S. Weinstein, MD, FACS (founding member of the Penn Center for Head and Neck Cancer) popularized the term "organ preservation surgery" in his text "Organ Preservation Surgery for Laryngeal Cancer" published in 1992. The surgeons at the Penn Center for Head and Neck Cancer have pioneered a variety of surgical techniques including the supracricoid partial laryngectomies to save the larynx in the face of laryngeal cancer.

Since the center's inception the patients treated at the Penn Center for Head and Neck Cancer have had state of the art microvascular free flap reconstruction for selected cases. In addition, minimally invasive endoscopic approaches, for skull base tumors, are performed on a regular basis by our skull base team consisting of six otorhinolaryngology and two neurosurgery faculty members under the leadership of Bert W. O'Malley Jr., MD and M. Sean Grady, MD.

Among our surgical innovations include the first in the world research and clinical program in transoral robotic surgery (TORS) utilizing the da Vinci® surgical system. To date we have done well over 250 TORS cases, with excellent reports of both oncologic and functional outcomes.

 

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