British Journal of Radiology 75 (2002),933 © 2002 The British Institute of Radiology
Neuropathology and Neuroradiology: a review. By J S Citow, R L Wollmann and R L Macdonald, pp. xiii+239, 2001 (Thieme Medical Publishers, Stuttgart), DM 179.00 ISBN 3-13-129231-8
A Jackson
This book aims to present a concise but detailed overview of the radiological and pathological features of a wide range of neurological disorders. It is written in a highly abbreviated format and data is presented as a series of lists of short information bites about individual disorders. Although it claims to be a review of neuropathology and neuroradiology, it is written much more in the form of an overview of basic pathological changes and clinical features. In many cases these are extremely brief, for example descriptions of disorders such as schizencephaly and porencephaly are no more than two lines each, acting simply as a place marker that the diseases exist. In the case of more common diseases, such as schwannomas, up to a page of text is devoted to a description of the aetiology, epidemiology and pathological features of the disease.
Owing to its format, the book presents a great deal of information in an extremely condensed form. Another advantage is the high quality of excellent pathological and radiological illustrations included for many diseases, with a total of over 300 plates throughout the book.
Unfortunately this book falls down significantly in its lack of detailed description of radiological techniques and of individual radiological signs related to individual conditions. Similarly, figure legends for both pathological and radiological illustrations assume a significant amount of prior knowledge on the part of the reader. There is no attempt to annotate images or to identify salient points on the images themselves. It is also disappointing that in a book with so many CT and MR illustrations, there is no discussion or explanation of their advantages or disadvantages in particular situations. Despite this, the book is a useful reference for those who wish to be able to rapidly access the salient points about common disorders of the nervous system, and might be a useful addition to reference bookshelves. Unfortunately, due to the paucity of radiological and pathological description, it cannot be recommended to those wishing to learn the radiological and pathological features of neurological diseases.
