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For Patients Make an Appointment Encyclopedia Articles about Ear, Nose and Throat

What is a Staging Endoscopy?

For most cancers of the throat and voice box areas, an endoscopy with scopes must be done in the operating room with the patient asleep to take a small piece of the lesion (a biopsy) to send to the pathology department so they can examine it and make a diagnosis. Most benign lesions do not need a staging endoscopy.

What if the Patient Already had a Staging Endoscopy by a Referring Otolaryngologist (Ear, Nose and Throat Physician)?

Although the patient may have already had a staging endoscopy by their referring otolaryngologist, another staging endoscopy may be suggested when the patient comes in to see a TransOral Robotic Surgery Team member at Penn Medicine. This is because the initial endoscopy done by the community surgeon was done to get the biopsy, but that physician may not have special expertise in TransOral robotic surgery (TORS). An expert in TransOral robotic surgery (TORS) will use the staging endoscopy to feel the tumor and see how it is spreading to surrounding tissues in a way that is not possible with the patient awake in the outpatient office setting. In this way, the surgeon with special expertise in TORS can assess if the patient is a good candidate for robotic surgery. Nonetheless, for some patients, an office examination will be sufficient to determine if he/she is a candidate for robotic surgery and if this staging endoscopy will be necessary.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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