Welcome adress

Dear Colleagues,

the present abstract volume contains a comprehensive overview about the manifold scientific contributions of the 90^th Annual Meeting of the German Society of Oto-Rhino-Laryngology, Head & Neck Surgery, taking place at Berlin.

On one hand, the scientific presentations cover the large spectrum of our discipline and on the other hand, they reflect also the topical focus on the congress motto entitled “Digitization in Oto-Rhino-Laryngology”.

Digitization processes gain more and more in importance in the healthcare landscape so that modern healthcare processes in current medicine and strategies of research and development can no longer do without digitization and artificial intelligence. In the same way, legal and ethical questions have to be discussed that result from medico-technical progresses.

Several of the presented contributions show different areas of prevention, diagnostics, therapy up to follow-up concepts where digital approaches and processes play a fundamental role. Since Germany has a clear deficient in the context of healthcare digitization, intensive effort are urgently required in these medical areas.

I want to express my special thanks to all national and international authors for summarizing their scientific contributions and further I recommend the lecture of this volume to all interested readers. Each presentation contributes to the success of a scientific meeting and is essential for the development and stabilization of our discipline in the future.

I wish all of us many interesting and new information and knowledge when reading this book as well as exciting discussions in the context of our annual meeting in Berlin.

Cordial regards,

Prof. Dr. med. Stefan Dazert

President 2018/2019