Functional outcomes and quality of life in patients who undergone conventional or endoscopic/robotic retroauricular neck dissection: a case-control study.

Background: Neck dissection performed via retroauricular approach emerged as an alternative to the conventional approach, aiming to maintain therapeutic efficacy with lower postoperative morbidity. Differences among these modalities in terms of functional aspects and quality of life (QOL) remains unclear. This study aims to evaluate the anatomical and functional aspects and the QOL in patients undergoing unilateral neck dissection via conventional or retroauricular (endoscopic or robotic) access. Methods: This study involved consecutively 35 patients who underwent unilateral neck dissection for head and neck cancer, 25 submitted to the conventional surgery [conventional group (CG)] and 10 to the retroauricular approach [retroauricular group (RG)]. Patients were evaluated preoperatively and on the 30 Results: The CG and RG were similar in terms of anthropometric, clinical and surgical variables. The mean age of both groups was between 52 and 55 years old. There was a predominance of females in the CG (52%) and males in the RG (70%); P=0.08. The most affected site was the oropharynx followed by the thyroid in the two groups and the most frequently dissected levels were I-III in both groups. There was a difference in the length of hospital stay {CG: 5 [1-22] days and RG: 2 [1-6] days; P=0.02} and pain scores at the 30 Conclusions: Postoperative functional morbidity was lower in patients undergoing retroauricular neck dissection. The cervical spine ROM and trapezius muscle strength were better in patients undergoing retroauricular approach and postoperative QOL was worse in patients undergoing conventional neck dissection.