Male breast cancer is rare in our centre. Late presentation with advanced disease is a common feature in our environment. Further multiinstitutional, prospective studies are needed for better understanding of management of male breast cancers in Indian subset of patients.

The COVID-19 pandemic has placed unprecedented pressure on healthcare services. Deprioritisation of nonemergency clinical services and growing concerns of adverse outcomes of COVID-19 in cancer patients is having a deleterious impact across oncologic practice. We report cancer surgery outcomes taking into account the acuity of the COVID-19 situation. A prospectively maintained database of the Department of Surgical Oncology was analysed from 1st May to 30th June, 2020, to evaluate the perioperative outcomes, morbidity and mortality following major surgical procedures. A total of 359, preoperatively, tested negative for COVID-19 underwent surgery. Median age was 52 years with 26.7% (n = 96) above the age of 60 years. Sixty-one percent (n = 219) patients were American Society of Anaesthesiology grades II–III. As per surgical complexity grading, 36.8% (n = 132) cases were lower grades (I–III) and 63.2% (n = 227) were complex surgeries (IV–VI). 5.3% (n = 19) had ≥ grade III Clavien-Dindo complication, and the postoperative mortality rate was 0.27% (n = 1). Major complication rates in patients > 60 years were 9.3% in comparison to 4.1% in < 60 years (p = 0·63). The median hospital stay was 1–10 days across subspecialties. Postoperatively, repeat COVID 19 testing in 2 suspected patients were negative. Our study showed that after screening, triaging and prioritisation, asymptomatic cases may undergo cancer surgeries without increased morbidity during COVID-19 pandemic.

More than half of patients with oral cancer recur even after multimodality treatment and recurrent oral cancers carry a poorer prognosis when compared to other sites of head and neck. The best survival outcome in a recurrent setting is achieved by salvage surgery; however, objective criteria to select an ideal candidate for salvage surgery is difficult to frame, as the outcome depends on various treatment-, tumor-, and patient-related factors. The following is summarizes various tumor- and treatment-related factors that guide our decision-making to optimize oncologic and functional outcomes in surgical salvage for recurrent oral cancers. Short disease-free interval, advanced tumor stage (recurrent and primary), extracapsular spread and positive tumor margins in a recurrent tumor, regional recurrence, and multimodality treatment of primary tumor all portend worse outcomes after surgical salvage. Quality of life after surgical intervention has shown improvement over 1 year with a drastic drop in pain scores. Various trials are underway evaluating the combination of immunotherapy and surgical salvage in recurrent head and neck tumors, including oral cavity, which may widen our indications for salvage surgery with improved survival and preserved organ function.

The present study confirms that the clinical presentation of pheochromocytoma is variable and non-specific. Often the tumor is discovered incidentally. Though pheochromocytoma is a rare tumor, proper evaluation, preoperative preparation and complete surgical excision are important for its management.

Hypopharyngeal cancers are uncommon. The management of advanced hypopharyngeal carcinomas has been a difficult problem. Surgical resection has been more successful. While many surgical methods have been used and reported pharyngolaryngo esophagectomy with gastric pull up remains the best option. This study documents our experience with patients who underwent total pharyngolaryngoesophagectomy with immediate gastric pull-up for advanced carcinoma hypopharynx. The clinical data of 17 patients treated with pharyngo-laryngo-esophagectomy for advanced carcinoma of the hypopharynx between 2001 and 2004 was analyzed. All patients had advanced disease and required a gastric pull-up for reconstruction. Data obtained included age, sex, site, stage, post op complication, duration of follow up, recurrence & survival. Average age was 37.7 years and ranged from 27 to 56 years. There were 13 female patients and 4 male patients .13 patients presented with postcricoid tumours and 4 with posterior pharyngeal wall tumors, 13 patients presented with stage 3 tumors and 4 patients presented with stage 4 tumors. Wound infection was present in 2 patients (11.7%), anastomotic leak in 1(5.8%), hypocalcemia in 1(5.8%) and malignant pleural effusion in 1 patient (5.8%). Local recurrence occurred in 1(5.8%) while nodal recurrence occurred in 5(29.4%) patient. The average over all survival in our study was 19.5 months and ranged from 2 to 101 months. The gastric pull-up operation is a useful and effective method for the immediate reconstruction of the advanced hypopharyngeal malignancy.