The current medical practice has become more of a team effort rather than an isolated practice. The current evaluation of patients in the daily practice is essentially performed by medical assessment of the patient in question followed by diagnostic imaging, and when needed and possible the evaluation of tissue for diagnosis with its subsequent assessment of biomarkers and other ancillary tools that play an important role in the evaluation and prognosis. The book herein proposed will exactly provide such assessment focused in the thoracic assessment of patients afflicted with any particular disease of the thorax. Expert clinician in pulmonary medicine will provide the state of the art in the evaluation of such patients, which will provide the most important background in the clinical impression and further assessment of these patients. This assessment in most cases is followed by the evaluation of imaging, which provides a highly important information of not only the exact location of the process but also of the nature of whether is localized, infiltrative, diffuse, bilateral, etc., as well as the possible compromise of other adjacent structures. Such information is crucial as imaging and clinical information will provide a working diagnosis, which ultimately will be defined by the pathological assessment. Therefore, in real practice neither one of these subspecialties works alone or in isolation. On the contrary, each one depends on the other for the final diagnosis and proper management of patients with thoracic diseases. Based on such experience is that the current text will provide in the same text of the needed information that a clinician, radiologist or pathologist will need in order to arrive to the best possible conclusion.
The scope of this book is unique in its nature as currently, even though there are several text on either one of those specialties, those publication are strictly on the either radiology, medicine or pathology. Our proposed text will bring all those together in a single text and written by experts in their respective field. This book should be of interest to all of those in the practice of thoracic medicine (radiologist, pulmonologist, pathologists) and any one who in the general practice is confronted with the evaluation of these patients.
Cesar A. Moran, MD
Professor
Department of Pathology
M D Anderson Cancer Center
Houston, TX
713-792-8134
cesarmoran@mdanderson.org
Mylene Truong, MD
Professor
Diagnostic Radiology
M D Anderson Cancer Center
Houston, TX
713-792-3492
mtruong@mdanderson.org
Patricia M. de Groot, MD
Associate Professor
Diagnostic Radiology
M D Anderson Cancer Center
Houston, TX
713-792-4833
pdegroot@mdanderson.org
All the authors of this book are practicing physicians with ample experience in the field of thoracic diseases. Each one of the authors in their respective field have attained extensive experience in the evaluation of patients with either pulmonary, pleural, or mediastinal lesions, which lends itself to the current practice in which medicine, radiology, and pathology close interacts to provide the best possible assessment in the diagnosis and treatment of patients affected with
thoracic lesions.
