A new paper from the Otolaryngology Department at Vall d’Hebron Hospital has just been published in Frontiers in Oncology on patient-specific 3D planning for surgical planning in parapharyngeal space lesions. Congratulations to David Virós and his team for this excellent work, which continues a line initiated at Can Ruti exploring transoral robotic access to the parapharyngeal space.
The authors describe a patient-specific 3D planning workflow to help select the most appropriate surgical approach for parapharyngeal space lesions. In their series of 17 patients, 3D planning changed the initially planned approach in 23.5% of cases. Importantly, the algorithm does not aim to make every lesion a TORS case, but rather to use detailed anatomical information to determine when a transoral, external or combined approach is most appropriate.
A very interesting step towards patient-specific planning of access to one of the most challenging areas of head and neck surgery.
J Granell. Oct 5, 2026
Vergés Fort P, Fuentes Cabrera JF, Naches Solsona S, Grau deDiego L, Escot Garcia L, Tortajada Bustelo JC, Rodríguez Sánchez JM and Virós Porcuna D (2026) Patient-specific three-dimensional planning for surgical approach selection in parapharyngeal space lesions: development of the Vall d’Hebron 3D-PPS Algorithm. Front. Oncol. 16:1954820. doi: 10.3389/fonc.2026.1954820