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Emory University Hospital Atlanta, GA 30322
Edited by Philippe Grenier and Charles B. Higgins. Oslo, Norway: The NICER
Institute, 315 pp., 2000. $140
The first section of volume V, "Chest Imaging," consists of 192 pages and represents the cumulative work of an editor and 10 contributing authors. Each entry is briefly discussed and is often illustrated. Pictures are plentiful and of excellent quality. Despite the brevity of the discussions, they are well written and contain a significant amount of information. For the most part, the headings are chosen from commonly used terms. Secondary and some tertiary terms are also listed, with reference to the appropriate text. The topics are organized alphabetically and are easily accessed.
Topic headings include specific diseases (asbestosis, diffuse aspiration bronchiolitis), diagnostic signs (pleural tail sign, air bronchogram), radiologic manifestations (rounded atelectasis, centrilobular emphysema), as well as pulmonary and related syndromes (ciliary dyskinesia syndrome, Caplan's syndrome), technical matters (digital radiography, pixel index), and a group of terms that falls into no particular category, such as "lung cancer stage grouping" (which includes a brief but lucid explanation of the TNM classification).
The scope of coverage of the field is good and the choice of entries, relevant. For the most part, the topic headings are intuitive, except for an occasional case that probably stems from the partial European heritage of the book; for example, there is no entry or cross reference for "smoke inhalation," which is included under the heading of "acute inhalational injury." Such examples are not common.
The second section, "Cardiovascular Imaging," is essentially limited to the heart and great vessels. It is a single-author work, edited and written by Charles Higgins. The organization and style are identical to that of the chest section. Both acquired and congenital lesions are included. Discussion of methods used for diagnostic evaluation includes echocardiography and nuclear medicine studies, but the illustrations are largely limited to chest radiographs, ultrafast CT, and MR imaging studies. The numerous entries regarding MR imaging provide a good overview of the current diagnostic uses and potentials of this modality.
The encyclopedic format works well for acquired heart diseases but is not as effective for the more complex congenital lesions. Understanding the latter group, in which the positions and relationships of the great vessels and cardiac chambers are often abnormal, requires a reasonable knowledge of cardiac anatomy and development. This knowledge is not available in an organized presentation but could be provided within the existing format using overviews under the topic headings.
In general, the book adheres to scientific terminology, sometimes at the expense of intuitiveness. For example, there is no entry for "corrected transposition" or "ventricular inversion." The reader would have to know the lessfrequently-used terms, "levotransposition" or "L-transposition," to find the pertinent material. Similarly, mitral valve prolapse would be searched for, but not found, under the heading "floppy mitral valve." Commonly used appellations should be included and used as pointers to the proper terms.
Many of the illustrations are of MR images or CT sections. Although the legends are adequate, a more liberal use of labels and arrows would make them considerably easier to understand, especially for those not versed in cardiac imaging.
A problem with any printed book, especially an all-inclusive one such as this, is keeping it up to date. The speed of development of a field such as diagnostic imaging is such that in a short time significant entries will be missing. For example, this volume does not include positron emission tomography, nodule enhancement studies, or lung cancer screening. It would be comforting to know that addenda will be published on a regular basis at least once a year.
The method of numbering the illustrations is awkward—they are not numbered consecutively. Every page has a figure 1 but no reference to which page the relevant text is on. This is misleading in the occasional instance when the text at the bottom of one page refers to a picture on the following page.
Chest and Cardiovascular Imaging is not meant to be a textbook. It is a useful compendium for clinicians and other health professionals who interact with radiologists or who would like to have a better understanding of radiology reports. It should also be useful for subspecialty radiologists as a means of staying au courant with the overall field. Unfortunately, the volume provides no path to further information. Because the authors are all experts and know the pertinent literature in their areas, it would be useful if a short list of recommended review or seminal articles were appended to each entry.
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