Each year, specialists at the UAB Division of Otolaryngology/Head and Neck Surgery provide care for more than 10,000 patients, suffering from injuries or disorders of the ears, nose and sinuses, mouth, throat, neck and thyroid. Services available incorporate treatment of neoplasms of the head and neck, skull base and thyroid; management of maxillofacial trauma; benign laryngeal and voice disorders; cochlear implants; otology and neuro-otology; image guided sinus surgery; facial cosmetic and reconstructive surgery and general otolaryngology.

While some patients’ maladies can be managed in a clinical setting, others require surgery. The division performs more than 3,000 surgical procedures a year, qualifying for national status. “We rank right up there nationally with MD Anderson, Johns Hopkins and Sloan-Kettering in patient volume for head and neck cancer surgery and endocrine surgery,” says Division Director Glenn Peters, MD. “Primarily, we draw patients from the Southeast, but they come from all over.” To accommodate patients and spare them multiple visits to multiple doctors, UAB has a multi-disciplinary clinic for initial assessments of patients, which is helpful to those who are traveling.

Peters’ particular interest is endocrine surgery, in which the thyroid and parathyroid glands, and surrounding tissue, are treated or removed, usually by minimally invasive procedures. “I find it to be a very focused and interesting surgery, whether the condition is benign or malignant,” he says. The division performs more than 600 endocrine surgeries annually. Gone are the days of long incisions that leave unsightly scars and require overnight hospitalization. Because of the highly visible, “front and center” nature of head and neck endocrine surgery, minimally invasive endoscopic procedures are particularly popular with patients, as well as their physicians. “For endocrine surgery, there is a small incision and a correspondingly small scar, the pain and downtime are far less than the way we operated several years ago,” Peters says.

Image-guided endoscopic surgery is often used for sinuses. “For many mouth, throat and nasal procedures, there’s often no need for an incision when using an endoscope. If a cut is made, no scar is visible outside the cavities,” Peters says.

Because of UAB’s multidisciplinary setting, otolaryngologists can collaborate, if necessary, with oncologists and plastic surgeons when treating benign or malignant tumors of the mouth, nose and paranasal sinuses, salivary glands, pharynx, larynx, skull base, endocrine glands and skin of the head, face and neck. This collaborative effort is also available for facial trauma and cosmetic and reconstructive surgery. A patient’s appearance, as well as his or her ability to talk, swallow, chew and breathe can be affected by head and neck surgery. To regain function, rehabilitative procedures such as speech therapy and audiology are often employed after surgery.

“We perform about 1,500 head and neck cancer surgeries a year,” Peters says. Some of the most commonly treated forms of head and neck cancer are oral, laryngeal, throat, nasal cavity and paranasal sinus, salivary gland, thyroid, and parathyroid tumors. While Peters and his associates have been using minimally invasive techniques for the last several years, UAB is pioneering the use of the da Vinci robotic surgical system for head and neck cancers. In fact, UAB surgeons were the first in the Southeast to use the system for pharyngeal and tongue-base tumors, allowing for better vocal retention and swallowing capability for patients. Because robotics can be more minimally invasive for certain surgeries, patients are sometimes spared more radical procedures to remove malignant tumors.

As a teaching hospital and research center, UAB continues to pursue better treatments for head and neck cancers and other diseases, and usually has ongoing clinical trials working to that end. Coupled with state of the art operating rooms, outpatient clinics and surgery facilities, the division of Otolaryngology, head and neck surgery is constantly striving to improve the quality of life for its patients.

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