I was in an operating room in Hong Kong for the first time ten years ago, in August 2016, at Queen Mary Hospital. What, or rather, who, brought me there was Raymond Tsang.
Of course, robotics was the motivation, and there were two particular areas in which he was involved. The first was the early experience with the da Vinci Single Port (SP). The second was perhaps even more striking: robotic access to the nasopharynx for recurrent nasopharyngeal carcinoma.
This was particularly interesting for me because, as Head&Neck surgeons, we know that nasopharyngeal carcinoma is not primarily a surgical disease. We treat the neck when required, but the primary tumour is managed with radiotherapy, with or without chemotherapy. Most of us have therefore considered the nasopharynx not to be a conventional target for oncological surgery.
Robotic surgery provided a new way of reaching the nasopharynx, for selected patients with recurrent disease after previous treatment. It remains a niche indication, for highly selected cases and in selected centres around the world, but they opened that door.
J Granell. Oct 4, 2026
PS. The surgical technique is described in our dissection manual.