Ocular Inflammation: Basic and Clinical Concepts

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1853175072 ISBN 13: 9781853175077

Publisher: CRC Press, 1999

An invaluable, highly illustrated reference to the understanding and management of ocular inflammation and the immunological response to treatment. Edited by one of the world's most foremost authorities on ocular inflammation and written by a leading team of distinguished ophthalmic immunologists, this book meets the need of not only the attending ophthalmologist (whether in the district general hospital or a tertiary centre), but also vision research scientists.

About the Author:

[MD PhD] - Professor of Ophthalmology

From The New England Journal of Medicine:

Since the eye is only 24 mm in diameter, a 500-page book devoted to basic and clinical concepts of ocular inflammation will seem a bit excessive to many clinicians and scientists. Yet the editor of this book, David BenEzra, laments in his introduction that "all the pertinent knowledge" could not be incorporated into a single volume. Indeed, the eye deserves special consideration as a target of the immune response. By virtue of the success of corneal allografts, eye tissue is the type of tissue most frequently transplanted. The eye can be the target of infections, cancers, and systemic or localized autoimmune diseases. Although it is an immunologically privileged (protected) site, the eye does not always escape damage from the immune response.

In this handsomely illustrated book, written by members of the International Ocular Inflammation Society, BenEzra has assembled a laudable collection of up-to-date reviews of topics that range from basic immunologic principles that apply to the eye to clinical disorders such as conjunctivitis, scleritis, uveitis, keratitis, orbital disease, optic neuritis, and selected infections and cancers. The intended reader is an ophthalmologist or ophthalmic scientist. Generalists, who evaluate patients with ocular inflammation in an effort to identify systemic disease, will also find valuable information in this compendium.

BenEzra, a clinician-scientist from Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem, is an internationally recognized authority on ocular inflammatory disease. Editing a book such as this one presents challenges with regard to accuracy, redundancy, consistency, and topicality. BenEzra, who wrote 11 of the 30 chapters, has mostly succeeded in meeting these challenges, although at times problems surface. Cat scratch disease, for example, is said to have an undefined cause despite the evidence that it is due to bartonella infection. In one chapter, lupus erythematosus is misspelled. Mycophenolate is erroneously described as having no toxic effects on the bone marrow. Sjogren's syndrome, almost certainly the most common autoimmune disease of the eye and its adnexa, is only briefly mentioned. HLA-B27-associated anterior uveitis, one of the most common diagnoses in North American clinics that specialize in intraocular inflammation, merits only a 6-page chapter, whereas 34 pages are devoted to Behcet's disease, which is rare in North America, although it is prevalent in the Middle East and Japan.

Despite the shortcomings, this attractive book is successful. It contains unique and invaluable chapters, such as a well-written discussion of the application of polymerase-chain-reaction analysis in uveitis and a review of orbital inflammation, a topic that is often neglected in discussions of ocular inflammatory disease. This book has undoubtedly helped me enhance my care of patients with diverse ocular inflammatory diseases.

James T. Rosenbaum, M.D.
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