Page 36 - Head and neck surgery

When performing TORS, we are approaching

pathologies from within the oral cavity i.e.

“inside-to-outside”. This is in contrast to

conventional open surgery whereby we approach

pathologies from the neck towards the pharynx

i.e. ”outside-to-inside”.

A common complication associated with TORS is

bleeding. This can be due to inadvertent vessel

injury when resecting pathologies in the

oropharynx and/or exposure of vessels resulting

in secondary blowout bleeding.

Other than sound knowledge of anatomy, careful

patient selection, meticulous pre-operative

planning, prophylactic ligation of facial and lingual

arteries, and liberal use of flap coverage of Otolaryngol Clin N Am 49 (2016) 715-725.

exposed vessels can help to prevent bleeding

complications.