Tailoring the Surgical Corridor to the Disease: Real-World Experience with Extended Endoscopic Maxillary Approaches

Endoscopic endonasal surgery has transformed access to the paranasal sinuses and adjacent skull base, but lesions extending into or through the maxillary sinus and its surrounding compartments still challenge the limits of standard endoscopic corridors. Extended approaches - including transpterygoid, prelacrimal, endoscopic Denker’s, and combined or staged techniques - allow surgeons to reach the infratemporal fossa, pterygopalatine fossa, orbital floor, and anterior/lateral maxillary walls while preserving function and minimizing morbidity. Yet the choice of corridor is rarely standardized: it depends on disease type, extent, prior surgery, and anatomical variation, and outcomes data are often limited to single-center or small case series.This Research Topic aims to bring together real-world clinical experience with extended endoscopic maxillary approaches, with a focus on how surgeons match the surgical corridor to the disease rather than applying a one-size-fits-all technique. We welcome contributions addressing surgical indications and decision-making, technique modifications and their rationale, functional and oncologic outcomes, complication avoidance and management, and long-term follow-up data across benign and malignant pathologies of the maxillary sinus and adjacent regions.We encourage submissions covering, but not limited to:• Comparative or decision-making frameworks for selecting endoscopic corridors (transpterygoid, prelacrimal, Denker’s, combined transnasal-transoral, etc.);• Case series or cohort studies reporting real-world outcomes of extended maxillary approaches;• Technical notes on approach modifications, extensions, or hybrid/combined techniques;• Management of specific pathologies (inverted papilloma, antrochoanal polyp, juvenile nasopharyngeal angiofibroma, sinonasal malignancy, odontogenic and skull base tumors) via extended endoscopic routes;• Functional preservation strategies (nasolacrimal duct, infraorbital nerve, facial contour) and reconstruction after extended resections;• Complication rates, revision surgery, and long-term recurrence or functional outcomes;• Comparisons between endoscopic and open or combined approaches for maxillary and adjacent-compartment disease.• Applying the maxillary corridor as an access to skull base and middle cranial fossa tumours.Original research articles, case series, technical notes, and systematic reviews are all welcome. By consolidating real-world surgical experience, this Research Topic seeks to clarify how corridor selection should be individualized to disease characteristics, ultimately supporting safer, more effective, and more reproducible extended endoscopic maxillary surgery.Topic Editor J. C. Hernaiz Leonardo reports compensation from GSK and Sanofi as an advisor and speaker. A. R. Javer reports speaker and advisory board roles with GSK, Sanofi and AstraZeneca, a financial interest in Sinustim, and a scientific advisor role at iView. S. M. Sadrehosseini and A. Tabari have none to declare. Topic editors: Azin Tabari, AMIN JAVER, Juan Carlos Hernaiz-Leonardo, Seyed Mousa Sadrehosseini Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/85329/tailoring-the-surgical-corridor-to-the-disease-real-world-experience-with-extended-endoscopic-maxillary-approaches