About Laryngo-Rhino-Otologie

Laryngo-Rhino-Otologie

Laryngo-Rhino-Otologie, abbreviated LRO, is a German professional journal for ear, nose and throat medicine and head and neck surgery in hospitals and private practice, published by the Georg Thieme Verlag in Stuttgart. Appearing twelve times a year, it supports ENT specialists in their daily work with short, readable contributions, practical tips and practice-relevant research. The journal carries the print ISSN 0935-8943, offers up to 36 CME continuing-education points per year, and is published in a hybrid model with an impact factor of 1.6. Its lineage stretches back to 1909, when the Zeitschrift für Laryngologie, Rhinologie und ihre Grenzgebiete was founded in Würzburg, making it one of the oldest ENT journals in the world.

Overview

Laryngo-Rhino-Otologie is the practice-oriented journal for German-speaking ENT medicine. It appears twelve times a year and is aimed at ENT specialists in hospitals and in private practice, as well as head and neck surgeons. The journal's profile is defined by accessibility: short, easily readable contributions that support readers in their daily work, practical tips with concrete instructions, and practice-relevant research presented in digestible form. Rubrics such as "Referiert und Diskutiert" (reviewed and discussed) and "Der interessante Fall" (the interesting case) draw on the practical experience of experts, while "Sehen und Verstehen" (see and understand) illustrates established ENT methods through video and text.

The journal offers up to 36 CME points per year through the Thieme CME portal, where subscribers can earn, submit and manage their continuing-education credits. This integration of journal and continuing education is central to the title's value proposition: reading the journal counts toward the mandatory professional development of physicians. The digital editions are available free of charge in the Thieme knowledge portal eRef, with the complete archive searchable, and the eRef app allows mobile reading including offline mode.

The journal is published in a hybrid model: subscription-based with open-access options, with article processing charges of 3,390 euros and CC BY and CC BY-NC-ND licences available. The publisher reports total usage of 1.4 million per year and a journal impact factor of 1.6, solid figures for a practice-oriented specialist journal.

History

The history of Laryngo-Rhino-Otologie begins in 1909, when the Zeitschrift für Laryngologie, Rhinologie und ihre Grenzgebiete was founded by the Curt Kabitzsch publishing house in Würzburg. The founding editor was Felix Blumenfeld of Wiesbaden, a prominent laryngologist who ran a large specialist practice in the spa town and was known far beyond his region for his extensive journalistic activities. In his editorial to the first volume, Blumenfeld referred to the introduction of the laryngeal mirror by Türck and Czermak fifty years earlier, the innovation recognised as the beginning of scientific laryngology.

The journal's early decades established it as a leading international forum for laryngology. Blumenfeld remained editor until 1934, when the National Socialists revoked his editorship, a rupture that damaged both the international reputation of German ENT medicine and that of the publisher. In 1925 the term "Otologie" had been added to the title, mirroring the unification of the specialist field. The volume numbering continues to this day: the journal reached volume 99 in 2020 as the Laryngo-Rhino-Otologie at Thieme Verlag in Stuttgart.

Under Thieme, one of the world's leading medical publishers, the journal developed into the modern LRO: a monthly practice journal combining scientific content with continuing education. The transition from a classical scientific journal to a practice-oriented CME journal reflects the broader evolution of medical publishing, in which journals serve not only as archives of research but as instruments of professional development.

Content and Sections

The content of Laryngo-Rhino-Otologie is organised around the practical needs of ENT specialists. Clinical topics span the full range of the specialty: rhinology and sinus surgery, otology and hearing, laryngology and voice, head and neck oncology, paediatric ENT, allergology and sleep medicine. Operative techniques are a traditional focus, with illustrated contributions on procedures from tympanoplasty to endoscopic sinus surgery.

The rubric structure gives each issue its characteristic mix. "Referiert und Diskutiert" presents and discusses current literature, "Der interessante Fall" presents instructive cases from practice, and "Sehen und Verstehen" combines video and text to illustrate established methods. "Facharztwissen HNO" provides practice-oriented information on central specialist topics. Short contributions and interesting rubrics keep the content accessible for busy clinicians.

Continuing education is woven into the content: CME articles allow readers to earn points, and the Thieme CME portal manages the process. The hybrid publishing model means that selected articles are available open access, while the subscription provides the complete content including the archive. Recent articles, such as the August 2026 contribution on improved exposure of the glottic plane through angled optics with holding systems, illustrate the journal's combination of surgical innovation and practical guidance.

Publisher and Organization

Laryngo-Rhino-Otologie is published by the Georg Thieme Verlag KG, Rüdigerstraße 14, 70469 Stuttgart, one of the leading international publishers for medicine and the life sciences. Thieme's medical journal programme is among the most extensive in the world, and the LRO benefits from the publisher's infrastructure: the Thieme Connect e-journal platform, the eRef knowledge portal and app, and the CME portal.

Detailed information about the current editorial leadership is not publicly confirmed in the sources consulted. The journal operates with the standard governance of a Thieme specialist journal, with editors drawn from the German ENT academic community.

The business model combines institutional and personal subscriptions, open-access article charges and the CME offering. The subscription includes the digital editions with archive access via eRef, and the CME points add a professional-development value that justifies the subscription for practising physicians. Advertising from pharmaceutical companies, medical device manufacturers and other suppliers to ENT practice provides additional revenue.

The LRO is one of two major German-language ENT journals, alongside the journal HNO published by Springer Medizin. Where the HNO journal leans toward the scientific and clinical-academic, the LRO defines itself as the practice journal: shorter contributions, case-based learning and continuing education are its trademarks. This division of labour between the two titles is characteristic of German medical publishing, where specialist societies and publishers maintain parallel journals for research and for practice. The LRO's lineage, continuous since 1909, gives it the longest unbroken history of any German ENT journal, a heritage the publisher emphasises in its title profile. For authors, the journal offers a route to reach practising clinicians rather than only academic peers, which shapes its article types: reviews, case reports and CME contributions rather than long original investigations.

Digital Presence

The journal's digital home is the Thieme Connect platform at thieme-connect.com, where current articles, abstracts and the archive are available. The Thieme journal page at thieme.de presents the title profile, subscription options and trial offers. The eRef portal and app provide the digital reading experience, with the complete archive searchable and available offline.

The digital strategy reflects Thieme's development of its journals into integrated knowledge services: the article is not an isolated text but part of a system that includes the archive, the CME portal, the app and the knowledge base. For a practice journal, this integration is the point: the reader moves from the article to the continuing-education credit to the reference work within a single ecosystem. With a lineage reaching back to 1909 and a modern digital infrastructure, Laryngo-Rhino-Otologie remains the practice journal of German-speaking ENT medicine, published monthly from Stuttgart.