Dear Colleagues, friends and visitors,

this year's annual meeting of the German Society of Otorhinolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery has as a motto early detection of diseases of the head and neck. Early detection of diseases is an important factor which influences the prognosis in many diseases especially in cancer. Even the development of young children is dependent on the early detection of hearing impairment, which affords special rehabilitation. In the head and neck there is a wide variety of possibilities of early detection of diseases. These are malignant diseases, allergic diseases, sleep related disorders and hearing impairment which are discussed during the conference. Further main topics are tissue engineering and tissue replacement, skull base surgery as an interdisciplinary approach and computer assisted surgery. Beside these main topics management of acoustic neuromas, navigated surgery of paranasal sinuses, skull base surgery, treatment of skin tumors of the head and neck and adjuvant tumor therapy are subjects of scientific sessions. The abstract publication contains 671 summaries of all scientific presentations. The reader will get an overview about the different topics and also will get important information about the scientific activity in Otorhinolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery. I would like to thank all authors for their contribution to the annual meeting of our society and wish you an enjoyable reading.

Bonn April 2008

Yours Friedrich Bootz