Transoral Robotic Surgery in Treating Patients With Benign or Stage I-IV Head and Neck Cancer

PRIMARY OBJECTIVES: To conduct a pilot study at City of Hope (COH) which assesses the feasibility and safety of TORS (Transoral robotic surgery), including: total operative time, blood loss, hospitalization time, need to convert to an open procedure, intra-operative as well as post-operative complications. SECONDARY OBJECTIVES: I. To collect data on oncologic outcomes, disease free survival, local control rate and overall survival. II. To collect normative data regarding objective functional outcomes (FO) which may impact quality of life in patients undergoing TORS, including need for adjunctive procedures, such as gastrostomy tube placement and tracheostomy placement, and with regards to speech, swallowing function and pain, using patient-report outcomes instruments. OUTLINE: Patients undergo transoral robotic microsurgery. After completion of study treatment, patients are followed up periodically for 5 years.