British Journal of Radiology (2004) 77, 626
© 2004 British Institute of Radiology
doi:
Magnetic resonance imaging in stroke. Edited by S Davis, M Fisher and S Warach, pp. xi + 266, 2003 (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK), £80.00 ISBN 0 521 80683 6
A Jackson
This book was published in 2003 and contains a very up to date description of the role of MR imaging in stroke and cerebral vascular disease. The book is in 19 chapters, the first dealing with the importance of specific diagnoses in managing stroke and then the current methods of stroke imaging with a chapter concerning CT and acute cerebral ischaemia and a chapter on cerebral blood flow using CT. There are then a large number of sections on MR starting off with a technical introduction written by Rohit Sood and Michael Moseley a nice introduction to standard clinical use of MR and then chapters on MR angiography and MR in stroke and intracranial haemorrhage. Following that they go into some of the more detailed, advanced methods with a chapter on animal experimentation using diffusion and perfusion and then chapters on clinical applications of the advanced techniques including diffusion, perfusion and arterial spin labelling. There is then a series of concept chapters describing how MR should and could be used in the future in managing stroke and two final chapters on spectroscopy and MRI.
This is an excellent book and should have a place on the shelf of any department doing stroke imaging. It deals with the current state-of-the-art and ability of CT and MR to deal with the stroke patient and more importantly identifies the features that should be sought for imaging to contribute to clinical management. The more high tech and less widely available techniques are kept in their proper place towards the back of the imaging section. The inclusion of specific discussion chapters concerning the use of imaging in identifying the ischaemic penumbra and for selecting patients for thrombolysis is extremely useful and comes in at exactly the right point of the book, after the introduction to basics and advanced techniques. Overall I have no hesitation in recommending this book for those interested in applying imaging techniques in patients with stroke.
