“…To date, such limited approaches have been shown to provide good oncologic and functional results when performed in selected patients and by experienced surgeons 17. Nevertheless, the advantages of transoral robotic surgery for enhancing the surgical field visualization in oropharyngeal tumors and for improving the postoperative outcomes as compared to open approaches have been confirmed by numerous authors since the first descriptions by Weinstein and O'Malley 1, 2, 3, 4, 18, 19, 20. To date, a retropharyngeal ICA has, however, been considered to be a contraindication for TORS due to the risk of a catastrophic vascular injury 10, 21.…”