Fig. 1

Case Series Acquisition. Flow chart of original case query and exclusions to produce the final set for analysis. The original query was based on CPT codes, internal institutional procedure and billing codes, as well as procedure-specific keywords. Patients having undergone parotidectomy were excluded due to the unique associated complications, and given that this population was addressed in another study. Misclassified procedures included entirely unrelated interventions, e.g. abscess drainage, which were inappropriately retrieved in the query. Three patients had revision procedures and only the most recent procedure was considered for long-term outcomes. Three patients did not respond to the telephone survey and so were not included for analysis