News

During our congress, last December in Zagreb, we said farewell to our president Dirk Kunst. During his term, from 2024 to 2026, he strongly advocated for various important matters, including:

• Continuity society and delivering membership benefits
• Set-up of the ESBS Third Party Funds Foundation
• Maintaining a strong financial position for the society
• The launch of the professionalization process by engaging Lisette Schreuder
• New ESBS website and logo
• The ideas of developing of a knowledge database
• The first steps in initiating an accreditation system for skull base centres
• First corporate sponsor for a 2 year partnership with Bissinger
• Launching the iniciative for Skull Base Guidelines development
• Engaging the patient associations in the ESBS congressess, ensuring the patientperspective becomes an integral part of evey event

Thank you so much, Dirk! We value your ongoing support and expertise within the society! 

Professor Martin Jurlina, born and based in Zagreb, is co‑founder, past president, and current co‑president of the Croatian Skull Base Society. He is a specialist in otolaryngology and maxillofacial surgery, and a subspecialist in head and neck plastic and reconstructive surgery.

His clinical and scientific work centers on sinus and skull base surgery, as well as oncologic, reconstructive, and aesthetic head and neck procedures. He has pioneered several techniques, including the first use of an ultrasonic knife in endoscopic skull base surgery and the introduction of free temporalis fascia grafts for endoscopic reconstruction. He is also advancing hybrid transmaxillary approaches to the anterior, central, and middle skull base.

As the founder of modern skull base surgery in Croatia, Martin introduced both transcranial and endoscopic approaches for anterior cranial fossa tumors and performed the country’s first open transcranial and fully endoscopic cranionasal resections. Today, he is regarded as Croatia’s leading expert in open and endoscopic tumor surgery involving the anterior and central skull base.

Martin Jurlina: "During my ESBS presidency, I want to strengthen the Society’s functioning and bring it closer to its members, with special attention to our younger colleagues. We need to consolidate ESBS, improve communication with national skull base societies, and give an extra boost to those that need renewed energy. Where there is a strong group of interested colleagues, we should support the creation of new societies as well. Internationally, it’s important to maintain, and ideally enhance, our excellent collaboration with NASBS, and to build new bridges with national and regional groups in the Far East. They have been outside our focus so far, yet I believe there is great potential for meaningful cooperation on many levels."