Mike Yao
Westchester Medical Center
- 27
- 18
1855 Saw Mill River Road
Ardsley, New York 10502
United States
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Dr. Mike Yao is a fellowship trained head and neck surgical oncologist. A graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, Dr. Yao went to Yale University, School of Medicine. He did his residency in Otolaryngology at Stanford University and completed a Head and Neck Surgical Oncology Fellowship at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, TX.
After completing his fellowship, Dr. Yao joined the faculty at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he rose to the rank of Associate Professor and served as program director of the residency program. In 2008, he joined the faculty at Stanford University where he specialized in care of patients with melanoma of the head and neck. In 2011, he moved to Westchester County, NY and was in practice at Westchester Medical Center. He practiced at Mount Sinai from 2014-2020. In 2020, he returned to Westchester Medical Center as Director of Head and Neck Surgery.
Dr. Yao cares for patients with head and neck cancer. He has a special interest in diseases of the thyroid and parathyroid, melanoma and advanced skin cancers.
Dr. Yao has over 30 publications and been invited to lecture nationally and internationally over 90 times. He has been named to the Best Doctors and America’s Top Doctors numerous times.
The Sinai Robotic Surgery Trial in HPV Positive Oropharyngeal Squamous Cell Carcinoma (SCCA) (SIRS TRIAL). ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT02072148. In general, patients with Human Papilloma Virus Positive Oropharyngeal Squamous Cell Carcinoma (HPVOPC) are curable, young and will live for prolonged periods. They are at high risk for long-term toxicity and mortality from therapy. While the long-term consequences of chemotherapy and surgery for head and neck cancer are relatively constrained, high-dose radiotherapy (RT) and chemoradiotherapy (CRT) substantially impact on local tissues and organ function and result in a significant rate of late mortality and morbidity in patients. Studies are now being designed to reduce the impact of RT and CRT for patients.
Patients with intermediate stage HPV positive oropharyngeal cancer will be screened for poor prognostic features and undergo robotic surgery. Patients in whom pathology demonstrates good prognosis features will then be followed without postoperative radiotherapy. Patients with subsequent recurrence will be treated with either surgery and postoperative radiotherapy or postoperative chemoradiotherapy alone. Patients with poor prognostic features (ECS, LVI, PNI) will receive reduced dose radiotherapy or chemoradiotherapy based on pathology. It is expected that over 50% of patients treated with surgery will have had a curative treatment and will avoid radiation therapy entirely and long-term survival will not be changed by withholding radiation therapy to good prognosis patients after surgery. There are exploratory biomarkers of risk of recurrence that will be collected and studied.
There are currently few trials examining the role of de-escalation using surgery alone in intermediate and early T-stage HPV related disease. New surgical techniques have broadened the range of patients capable of achieving a complete resection and the functional outcomes in such patients are outstanding. Furthermore, the sensitivity of HPVOPC to chemotherapy and radiotherapy raise the possibility that delayed or salvage treatment in early stage patients would be highly effective, would result in similar survival outcomes and radiotherapy could be applied to a much smaller population then current standards call for. Looked at from a different perspective, the need for post-operative radiotherapy in this younger, HPV+ and more functional population has not been validated in clinical trials to date.
The Quarterback Trial: Reduced Dose Radiotherapy for HPV+ Oropharynx Cancer. ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT01706939. This trial aims to directly compare a reduced radiation dose to the standard of care in HPVOPC for non-inferiority, thus allowing for direct comparison of outcomes between the two groups. The study hypothesis is that LRC and PFS at 3 years for reduced dose CRT are non-inferior to standard dose CRT.
Ho AS, Tsao GJ, Chen FW, Shen T, Kaplan MJ, Colevas AD, Fischbein NJ, Quon A, Le QT, Pinto HA, Fee WE, Sunwoo JB, Sirjani D, Hara W, Yao M. Impact of positron emission tomography/computed tomography surveillance at 12 and 24 months for detecting head and neck cancer recurrence. Cancer 2013 Apr; 119(7).
Yao M, Roebuck JC, Holsinger FC, Myers JN. Elective neck dissection during salvage laryngectomy. American journal of otolaryngology; 26(6).
Agulnik M, Rhee EN, Yao M, Mundt AJ, Feldman LE. Paclitaxel, carboplatin, and concomitant radiotherapy for resected patients with high risk head and neck cancer. Journal of chemotherapy (Florence, Italy) 2005 Apr; 17(2).
Hall CL, Yao M, Hill LL, Owen-Schaub LB. Essential role for hematopoietic Fas ligand (FasL) in the suppression of melanoma lung metastasis revealed in bone marrow chimeric mice. Clinical & experimental metastasis 2004; 21(3).
Saeed S, Yao M, Philip B, Blend M. Localizing hyperfunctioning parathyroid tissue: MRI or nuclear study or both?. Clinical imaging; 30(4).
Ho AS, Kaplan MJ, Fee WE, Yao M, Sunwoo JB, Hwang PH. Targeted endoscopic salvage nasopharyngectomy for recurrent nasopharyngeal carcinoma. International forum of allergy & rhinology; 2(2).
Kolokythas A, Schwartz JL, Pytynia KB, Panda S, Yao M, Homann B, Sroussi HY, Epstein JB, Gordon SC, Adami GR. Analysis of RNA from brush cytology detects changes in B2M, CYP1B1 and KRT17 levels with OSCC in tobacco users. Oral oncology 2011 Jun; 47(6).
Klasser GD, Epstein JB, Utsman R, Yao M, Nguyen PH. Parotid gland squamous cell carcinoma invading the temporomandibular joint. Journal of the American Dental Association (1939) 2009 Aug; 140(8).
Mohyuddin N, Yao M. Primary intraosseous carcinoma of the anterior maxilla: an unusual case and review of the literature. Ear, nose, & throat journal 2011 May; 90(5).
Rubinstein PG, Lindgren V, Setty S, Yao M, Pytynia KB, Radosevich JA, Kadkol SS, Feldman LE. Durable complete remission induced by cetuximab monotherapy in a patient infected with HIV and diagnosed with recurrent squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck. Journal of clinical oncology : official journal of the American Society of Clinical Oncology 2011 Mar; 29(9).
Yao M, Epstein JB, Modi BJ, Pytynia KB, Mundt AJ, Feldman LE. Current surgical treatment of squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck. Oral oncology 2007 Mar; 43(3).
Modi BJ, Knab B, Feldman LE, Mundt AJ, Yao M, Pytynia KB, Epstein J. Review of current treatment practices for carcinoma of the head and neck. Expert opinion on pharmacotherapy 2005 Jun; 6(7).
Cabay RJ, Setty S, Schwartz JL, Yao M, Schmidt ML, Gordon SC. Pediatric squamous cell carcinoma arising in an alpha-fetoprotein-producing mature cystic teratoma of the mandible. Pediatric blood & cancer 2009 Jan; 52(1).
Ahuja G, Cuellar S, Choudhry I, Setty S, Yao M, Villano JL. Complete response of CNS-involved olfactory neuroendocrine tumor using multimodal therapy. Onkologie 2008 Mar; 31(3).