2017/07/04
Professor Holger Sudhoff completed his training on otolaryngology, head and neck surgery in June 2000. During his training, he has had exposure to a broad spectrum of otorhinological procedures, as well as more specialized areas described below. As a fellow, he gained invaluable basic science research and laboratory skills. He has had broadened surgical experience by operating both independently and within a team framework. His passion for teaching has created an atmosphere receptive to learning. His Skull-Base fellowship in Cambridge provided him with outstanding skills in that surgery as well as insights into the NHS structure. In his current post, he has undertaken all the administrative, teaching and on-call duties associated with a professorial chairmanship in a busy teaching hospital serving a population of eastern Westphalia in Bielefeld. This post has provided Professor Sudhoff with the opportunity to gain vast experience at the level of executive responsibility and to gain further insight into all management issues and public relations, pertaining to running an ENT unit, such as organization and prioritization of operating lists, outpatient clinics and overseeing all financial developments. Professor Holger Sudhoff and his team have created one of the largest German ENT units over the last 10 years. In February 2013 Professor Sudhoff co-founded the German Skull Base Center in Bielefeld treating currently 120 major skull base cases annually. Professor Sudhoff served as President of the West-German ENT society in 2015 and was elected for Focus magazine of “Top Medical Doctors” for Otorhinolaryngology in Germany in 2013 to 2017. He was elected as a board member of Politzer Society in July 2015 in Niigata, Japan.
Professor Sudhoff worked with Professor Henning Hildmann and Professor Jan Helms, his otology supervisors, leading otologists / lateral skull base surgeons at the Bochum and Würzburg Universities. During Professor Sudhoff training and work as a Consultant, Professor Sudhoff has a extensive experience in middle ear procedures. He has participated as an invited lecturer in many national and international courses performing live surgery. Professor Sudhoff has received further training in the management of lateral skull base tumours and acoustic brainstem implants (ABI) in Cambridge, UK under the supervision of Mr. David Moffat, Mr. Patrick Axon and Mr. Robert Macfarlane (Neurosurgeon). Professor Sudhoff organized the multidicipinary skull base meetings as well as the NF2 clinics. He received training in all aspects of middle ear and skull base surgery, and reached the stage of developing independently new procedures (e.g. Balloon Eustachian Tuboplasty) in middle-ear surgery and in the management of all diseases of lateral skull base pathologies). He has developed the cochlear implant service in Bielefeld and started an implantable hearing devices program for active middle ear implants and bone anchored hearing aids During a humanitarian medical trip to Egypt in 01/2011 he treated several patients with gunshot injuries. Additionally, Professor Sudhoff along with the neurosurgeon Pofessor Falk Oppel supports a humanitarian project initiated by Professor Henning Hildmann in Ruanda, Africa and in the Ukraine.
Professor Sudhoff has received extensive training in the management of benign and malignant head and neck disease. He is competent and confident in performing a wide range of head and neck surgical procedures, ranging from thyroid and parotid surgery to managing tertiary referral oral and oropharyngeal tumours, and complex transfacial approaches for malignant skull base disease in both adult and paediatric patients. The latter includes midfacial degloving (e.g. for angiofibroma’s), lateral pharyngotomy as well as maxillary swing and other facial disassembly approaches. He also received extensive training in transoral laser microsurgery for primary and post-radiation-failure management of head and neck cancers. With regards to reconstruction, while he prefers to work in a multi-disciplinary team with plastic surgeons.
Professor Sudhoff has developed many research protocols from planning to implementation, publication and finally leading to a change of clinical practice. He was able to establish two research laboratories (Bochum University and Bielefeld) and generated the funding for both labs without intramural funding. Professor Sudhoff has experience in tissue processing, cell culture, ELISA, Radio-Immunoassay, Gel Electrophoresis, Transmission Electron Microscopy, Scanning Electron Microscopy, Immune Electron Microscopy, Molecular Biological Techniques such as m-RNA/DNA Extraction, Reverse Transcription, PCR, Mircoarray analysis, In-situ hybridisation, genetic probe analysis and zymography. Additionally he established a temporal bone dissection laboratory.
Professor Sudhoff has been successful in obtaining appropriate ethical and grant approvals of several Million Euros, the latter from numerous sources, both at a formal Scholarship Level to National Research Agency (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG. Professor Sudhoff has also been involved in several multi-centre clinical trials as well basic science research resulting in more than 190 publications in peer reviewed journals, 43 book chapters and 6 books. The overall impact factor now 400 and there is a Hirsch index of 27. Research on Eustachian tube dysfunction led directly to the development of the novel technique of balloon dilation tuboplasty (BET), which is now scattered worldwide. Several research projects are currently performed in Bielefeld, also in cooperation with Harvard University, USA and Cambridge University, UK. Professor Sudhoff is on the editorial board of 12 peer reviewed journals.
Holger Sudhoff, MD, PhD, FRCS (London), FRCPath (London)
Editor-in-Chief
Archives of Otorhinolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery
President
Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery
Bielefeld Academic Teaching Hospital, Muenster University, Bielefeld, Germany
Email: aohns.chief@scitemed.net
