- Patients must be indicated for major head and neck surgery, defined as surgeries with an anticipated post-surgical hospital stay of 4 or more days; examples of major surgeries include, but are not limited to, total laryngectomy, large oral cavity, oropharyngeal, salivary gland, or soft tissue resections requiring free flap or major regional flap (e.g. pectoralis major flap), and large skull base procedures requiring extensive skull base reconstruction