International Archives of Otorhinolaryngology (IAORL) innovates once again and combines the fourth issue of 2014 with a special edition of review articles. We would like to announce that we plan to publish at least one special issue each year that would feature various topics put forward by guest associate editors.

In this first special issue, the topics were proposed by Professor Ricardo L. Carrau of the Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, and Director of the Comprehensive Skull Base Surgery Program of the Ohio State University Medical Center. Several researchers in different areas with known expertise in aspects pertaining to the skull base were invited to contribute. We believe that these special issues will be of much interest to our readers.

In this fourth issue of IAORL, we would like to highlight the article "The Impact of Acute Loss of Weight on Eustachian Tube Function" (Pascoto et al). The number of obese patients is increasing rapidly worldwide, and bariatric surgery is becoming popular in the treatment of patients with this severe disease. Different types of surgery exist, and weight reduction may be achieved by reduction of food intake and/or decrease in food absorption. Patients are usually evaluated by a multidisciplinary team with a series of clinical and laboratory examinations. The article describes the occurrence of tubal dysfunction in almost 50% of the patients who lost weight after bariatric surgery. These results focus our attention on the importance of informing patients about the possible deleterious effects of this type of procedure, particularly regarding effects of relevance to our specialty.

We thank the authors and reviewers for their constant support and confirm that we will continue the annual awards for the best systematic review articles in 2015.

Good reading!