Nathan and Oski's Hematology of Infancy and Childhood: 2-Volume Set - Hardcover

Nathan MD, David G.; Orkin MD, Stuart H.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0721659519 ISBN 13: 9780721659510

Publisher: Saunders, 1997

Synopsis

An updated edition of a long-time classic in the field of infant and childhood hematology. The text has been reorganized, a new editor has collaborated with Dr. Nathan and 30 new chapter authors have been added. It is still the most complete clinical reference available on the subject!

About this title

From The New England Journal of Medicine

The fifth edition of Nathan and Oski's Hematology of Infancy and Childhood lives up to its reputation as the bible of pediatric hematology. There simply is no other book that approaches either the breadth or the depth of content for the specialist in pediatric hematology.

Pediatric hematology has been for years a focus of human genetics and molecular medicine, in part because of the accessibility of samples of blood and bone marrow for study. The discovery of the amino acid substitution that causes sickle hemoglobin established the first scientific basis for understanding the molecular nature of a genetic disease. The promise of molecular medicine has begun to bear fruit in the usefulness of molecular diagnostics in pediatric hematologic disorders and in the clinical benefits of recombinant molecules such as erythropoietin and granulocyte colony-stimulating factor. The book is based on the principle that critically presented scientific data establish the foundation of clinical practice. Hence, basic and clinical research is emphasized rather more than medical practice. Progress in the molecular understanding of hematologic disease is presented in depth in chapters on the red-cell membrane and enzymes, phagocytes, the immune system, and cancer. Several of the chapters are written to provide background information and perspective for students and practitioners of wet-bench research who will, as stated in the preface, "continue the great progress recorded here." The 75-page chapter on normal hematopoiesis by Sieff, Nathan, and Clark is a critical, analytical review written in a conversational style. Following Nathan's editorial principle of expanding the state-of-the-art presentation of "hot" areas of research and contracting those topics with little recent research activity, the hematopoiesis chapter contains a wonderful summary of the current knowledge of hematopoietic growth factors and their receptors and includes data from knockout mice, extensive descriptions of pertinent transcription factors, and a large section on hematopoietic-cell signal-transduction pathways. The authors are careful to put this vast amount of information, much of it obtained in the past five years, in the perspective of all that we do not yet understand.

Frank Oski, chairman of Pediatrics at Johns Hopkins, died recently and is sorely missed by all in the field. However, his contributions to previous editions live on, especially in the succinct chapter "A Diagnostic Approach to the Anemic Patient," which is of great educational value at all levels of clinical training. Oski's original chapter on neonatal red-cell disorders, updated with more recent data on, for example, cord-blood hematologic values, anemia due to blood drawing, and methemeglobinemia in neonates treated with nitric oxide, remains a classic that simply cannot be equaled elsewhere. A new editor, Stuart Orkin, has successfully revised the section on hemostasis, expanding it from five chapters to eight, including a chapter dedicated to bleeding patients that will be helpful to many clinicians.

This textbook will undoubtedly be useful to many others not directly involved in clinical or research pediatric hematology. First, it provides basic scientists with a clinical perspective. Second, pediatric and adult subspecialists will occasionally need it to read about rare conditions, and it should be included in the reference collection of every library on adult hematology or general pediatrics. However, its usefulness for the general pediatrician or pediatric surgeon is debatable, because considerably more scientific background is presented than the generalist will have time to review. To expand clinical utility without losing their fundamental scientific approach, the editors might consider for the next edition a multilayered approach that adds more detailed presentations of current medical practice in distinctively identified sections within each chapter.

There have been major revisions since the last edition five years ago, reflecting the relative importance of new and old areas of research more than the clinical utility of the information presented. The chapters not revamped have been carefully updated. The only text unaltered from previous editions is the classic history of pediatric hematology written years ago by the late Wolf Zuelzer. David Nathan has appended to it a sorely needed but very brief historical perspective on more recent developments. In the next edition, I hope that Nathan will give us the recent history of the intertwined progress of pediatric hematology and molecular medicine.

Reviewed by Christopher N. Frantz, M.D.
Copyright © 1998 Massachusetts Medical Society. All rights reserved. The New England Journal of Medicine is a registered trademark of the MMS.

About this edition

• Publisher: Saunders
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0721659519
• ISBN 13: 9780721659510
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 5
• Number of pages: 2027