Comprehensive Respiratory Medicine

COMPREHENSIVE RESPIRATORY MEDICINE is a revolutionary new reference designed to help the physician provide the highest standard of care for patients with respiratory disease. This comprehensive, clinically focused reference is the only text available that provides complete coverage of respiratory medicine in one, full-color volume. The first section covers examination of the patient, signs and symptoms, modern assessment techniques, and an outstanding highly illustrated imaging chapter. The second disease based section covers the wide spectrum of cases seen in clinical practice.

* Integrates basic science with a clinical focus, reflecting the way physicians practice. * Brings to life the science of respiratory medicine by explaining real-life, clinical situations. * Comprehensively covers all areas necessary when diagnosing, treating and managing a patient. * Written by experts in the field who present an international perspective of the subject. * Combines all information in a single volume, which is easy to carry and reference quickly. * Features fantastic full color artwork program to help explain difficult concepts in diagnosis and to promote understanding of the principles behind the disease. * Includes critical referencing system.

This new textbook is intended to provide comprehensive information about respiratory medicine. One of the explicitly stated goals for the book is to reflect the worldwide perspective of the clinical and scientific community in respiratory medicine. This aim is evident in the fact that more than 120 authors from 10 countries have contributed to the book. However, contributors from the United States and from Europe, particularly the United Kingdom, predominate. The book is intended to be informative and comprehensive, but also concise, in each subject area, and an attempt has been made to provide key information in illustrations rather than in text. To this end, the illustrators have done an excellent job, and the book looks very good. In addition, the text of each chapter is concise and easy to read.

The book breaks the mold of other large textbooks on respiratory medicine by not organizing its contents according to anatomy, physiology, pathology, and cell and molecular biology. Instead, chapters on imaging largely replace coverage of anatomy and pathology, and there is no comprehensive section on molecular biology or on the biology of lung cells. The section on imaging is comprehensive and magnificently illustrated with radiographic images, although pathological correlations are omitted. Pathology is dealt with superficially in individual chapters on specific diseases. The chapter on physiology is also beautifully illustrated, informative, and clear.

Elsewhere, unfortunately, the coverage is not so comprehensive: cell and molecular biology and lung inflammation are discussed in a chapter that deals only with host defenses, which in itself is comprehensive but lacks an informative discussion of the mechanisms of lung inflammation. The chapters on individual diseases are also concise but perhaps less comprehensive than those mentioned above and are not exhaustively referenced. There is less detailed information here than in other textbooks, which perhaps is a disadvantage. Although this book might appeal to general physicians in training, there is insufficient information in many of the chapters for respiratory physicians.

Practical procedures are presented particularly well, although some of the chapters lack sufficient practical advice about therapies. I was disappointed with the chapter on air pollution, which is not comprehensive and makes very little mention of the most recent information on particulate air pollution. The chapter on pleural diseases lacks practical advice, as does the chapter on pneumothorax. Some of the other chapters, such as that on idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, cover treatment only lightly. However, the text is well written and readable. The information on pitfalls at the end of some of the chapters is novel and particularly interesting; it is unfortunate that such information is not presented in all the chapters.

This book is a useful addition to the literature in respiratory medicine. It provides concise, essential information on topics in respiratory medicine, particularly on related diseases, rather than the more comprehensive and extensively referenced coverage of some of its competitors. I found it a very readable, well-illustrated book and would recommend it.

William MacNee, M.D.
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