Diagnostic-Imaging Books

This book is a great supplement for anyone interested in MRI of orthopedics. Good for practicing radiologists, MSK radiologists, orthopedic surgeons and radiology residents.

PRO:
1. The book is in an outline type format which makes finding what you need easier.
2. Wide variety of topics with differential diagnosis.
3. Excellent MRI pictures and color illustrations.

CON:

1. You need a primary textbook to go with this such as Resnick's Bone and Joint Imaging if you want in depth explanations. Kaplan's Musculoskeletal MRI is a better basic MRI book but much less comprehensive.

2. Expensive, but all medical books seem to be anyway.

Conclusion: Would strongly recommend this to anyone interested in Musculoskeletal MRI. Much better than other MSK books from Berquist or others.

Excellent color pictures/MRIs. Definitely not a beginner text- an advanced text. There is no guide to using the text. That would have been helpful. The pictures on the bottom of the page were almost too small to be of any good. For those of us who are not experts, it would have been nice to have some similar slices of normal anatomy next to the pathological anatomy.

For MSK MRI, this is an excellent reference book. The computer-designed illustrations are helpful and the bullet-point outline form works well for MSK (I'm not so sure about other specialties). This is not a comprehensive book to cover the pathophysiology of bone disease and it is all MR modality. I use it to complement other texts such as Greenspan.

This review pertains to the 2nd edition 2008 release of this title.

Per the back cover of the book:
"See exactly how to proceed via a DVD of video clips, demonstrating proper patient positioning and difficult procedures..."

This is one of the major reasons I purchased this book, and likely one of the major reasons other people are considering this book.

However, the DVD only covers THREE different procedures! They are:
1. Hypogastric Plexus Block
2. Lumbar sympathetic block
3. Splanchnic nerve block

This is all that is on the DVD!!! Out of the dozens if not hundreds of procedures in this textbook, why only videos of these three? They are by no means the most difficult pain procedures to master, nor are they very commonly employed in *most* pain practices, with the exception of the lumbar sympathetic block for CRPS/RSD.

Furthermore, these video clips were not made for this book, they are recycled videos from the University of Texas Pain Department that were filmed long ago, and sold under by the World Institute of Pain on its website on a DVD called "Instructional DVD Video #1 for interventional pain treatment techniques." So, I already had the exact same videos which I had purchased from the WIP previously! What a disappointment!

Secondly, these videos have a commercial agenda in employing only the Epimed curved blunt tip needles, which are an invention of Dr. Racz and manufactured by Epimed, whose President is Dr. Racz' son!

Other than
1. Only three techniques covered
2. Commercial bias

I think the video is quite good. But one would think there should be dozens of techniques on this DVD not just three!

Excellent description of each topic.No necessity to refer any further text books on the topic.Excellent description of procedure techniques. Good review of the indications, contraindications and complications of each procedure. Relevant X ray pictures and diagrams.

Good Book!

This is no doubt the most comprehensvie interventional pain management book that has been published so far. The value of having it on your bookshelf for quick reference during practice and for continued self improvement as an interventionist is of great significance. However, it is far from perfection.

Part I, "Anantomy and Physiology of Pain: Clinical Correlates" serves as the basic review of Anantomy and Pharmacology of pain processing system. The best chapter in this part is the "Functional Anatomy of the Spine" which contains detailed description and illustration of spine innervation from Atlantooccipital joint to lumbosacral facet, intervetebral discs, spinal nerves, etc. A concise review on techniques on performing selective diagnostic injections of the spinal axis at the end of this chapter including discography, nerve root sleeve approach and facet joint makes this chapter much more clinically relavant.

Part III, "Neural Blockade and Neurolytic Blocks", describes and demonstrates A to Z interventional techniques for blocking both neuroaxial and peripheral nerves. The chapters on radiofrequency techniques are very well written, thorough and easy to follow. However, it would be much better if authors included procedure codes for such procedrues as Rhizotomy of SI joint, RF lesioning of ramus communicans nerve, Ganglionotomy of cervical, thoracic and lumbar levels, RF lesioning of lumbar disc of which the procedural codes are no where to be found. I personally have been struggling to find such codes for the above techniques in my practice. The chapters on performing sympathetic block at various levels are also clearly illustrated and easy to follow, which serve well as the guide for performing these blocks in comparion to other interventional books which lack such content. Nervertheless, Part III also has many weaknesses. In fact, some of the techniques introdueced are rather old and obsolete especially when judging from the progress achieved in interventional pain management by 2001, but unfortunately without being incorporated into this section. E.g, most well trained interventional pain specialists will agree that fluoroscopy serves as "eyes" for the intervetionist, however, some of the chapters discussing neuroaxial intervential techniques do not even have any fluoroscopic image, such as the chapter on lumbar epidural block as well as the one on Sacroiliac joint injection. The worst chapter of all is the "Sacroiliac Joint Injection and Low Back Pain". First of all as mentioned above, it does not have any fluroscopic picture. Secondly, the patient was placed "supine position" instead of prone, yet, the "PSIS" was identified? How can someone identify PSIS from front? Let's just assume this is a "typo" error. Even so, no matter how many times I read through the procedural description, I still could not figure out how this was done. For someone like me, who is Board Certified in American Board of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, American Board of Pain Medicine, an interventional pain management fellowship trained spine interventionist, who simply could not make sense of such a simple procedre from its description. I wonder whether the author who wrote this chapter really knew how to perform SI joint injection. Maybe it means that this portion should be re-written. This is actually the main reason that I give this book 4 stars rating despite there are many other chapters that are very well written and useful for interventional pain practice. Another shortcoming is that some of the commonly performed procedures such selective nerve root block or transforaminal epidural were nerver even mentioned in Part III, but I think, should have been done so, although in the Chapeter of "Functional Anatomy of the Spine" of part I, selective nerve root sleeve appraoch was briefly introduced, it should also be here in Part III as this is the neural blockade section. Lastly, many of the interventionists consider "Selective Nerve Root Block"(SNRB) and/or Transforaminal Epidural Injection (TFEI) "bread and butter" of spine intervention, yet, this "most comprehensive interventional pain bible" with close to 800 pages does not even have them in its word index, which undoubtedly impacts negatively on its authority.

Part IV & Part V, "Neuroaugmentation" & "Spinal Administration of Opioids & Other Analgesic Compounds" are the best work of this book. They are the best resoures available for spinal cord stimulation and intrathecal drug delivery pump. The authors did outstanding work in writing up these chpaters and introducing to readers step by step the mechanisms, patient selection, implantation techniques and complications. The chapters on intrathecal drug delivery pump has helped my practice tremendously. However, the only shortingcoming is that it does not have chapter addressing Intrathecal Baclofen pump for Spasticity and Spasticity related pain syndromes. There are quite a number of patients with spasticity disorders due to brain injury, spinal cord injury, multiple sclerosis, etc, requiring implanted intrathecal baclofen pump. However, there is severe lack of resources in guiding the long term management of such patients, ie, maximal drug concentration, maximal daily drug dosage, drug holidays, etc.

The purpose of this review is also to give the editors some of the feedback from interventional pain physicians like me so as to extract more "nutrients" from its contributors in the future and to make the Third Edition a greater success, in addition to share my experience from learning this book and utilizing what I have learned in the practice of interventional pain managent.

I am giving 5 starts to counter-balance the unfair rating of 1 star given by the first reviewer.
It is not a bad book at all. Not for chemists wanting to learn MRI. However for a mathematical perspective of MRI, this book is quite refreshing. Its main drawback is the lack of practical applications, however, this was not the intent of the book. Therefore it deserves a better rating.

I have no idea whether or not this book is any good or not, but the comment by the previous reviewer about the position of the phase encoding gradient relative to the 180 degree pulse is wrong (it can be either before or after and there are advantages to having it placed after) so please do not let his opinion sway your decision. I have no affiliation with the author, and have been active in MRI research for about 10 years.

This book was written by a mathematician, who made every simple concept in MRI hard to understand and complicated. Too many irrelevent or unnecessary mathematical concepts and terminologies were introduced to MRI, without any explanation. The worst, the author is short of the basic knowledges of MRI. For instance, there is only one technical drawing about the one of the most important concepts in MRI, the pulse sequence, in the whole book (Fig.17 of page 99). Unfortunately, this pulse sequence is completely wrong. This is the first time in my career of 15 years as MRI physicist to have a chance to see that phase-encoding gradient is placed after 180 degree pulse in a practical spin-echo sequence. Obviously, this mistake was not caused by negligence or misprint. The worst student in my class will not make such a mistake. This book is useless to MRI physicist, chemist, engineer or any one who wants to learn or deepen his/her knowledge of MRI. I am curious about the fact that an experienced author, who is short of the basic understanding of his topic, has enough courages to publish a book. Is this a glory or a pity to him?

Have had a different book in this series and thought there would be more content. Okay book but a bit disappointed.

The images are fine, but I think this atlas lacks of a little bit of explaining text. Not bad, but I expected much more.

Nice little atlas, although ENT doctors get more out of it than neuro doctors.

The lost art of the plain radiograph is kept alive in this book. Organized by standard radiographic views, this book will be useful for clinicians, as well as junior residents in radiology. The images are arranged with the radiograph on one side with the schematic and key on the other.

Quality of the images are decent and some subtle soft tissue anatomy is poorly visualized but the schematic is useful. This book should be upgraded into the modern imaging techniques of digital radiography to outline the soft tissue structures.

The value of contrast enhanced studies are useful: angiographic, bronchographic, lymphographic and enteric anatomy is well defined. It could use more specific terminology, especially in gastrointestinal anatomy such as defining the Z line, B line, etc.

Despite some minor limitations, the book is very good and I recommend this for the framework of interpreting plain radiographs.

If you are just staring out in radiography, then this is the book you want.

While not useless, this book has several deficiencies that the serious clinician should consider before purchase: 1) the book is small (an advantage if one intends to keep it in a pocket or bag), which means that the images are small -- imagine trying to distinguish small details on an A-P lumbosacral spine view that measures 2" x 6". You CAN see the major features, but the smaller components are now rendered too small to see. 2) Despite the other reviews, image quality throughout this book is marginal. Yes, major structures are discernable, but subtle details (often the most important factors in noting early pathology or subtle injury) cannot be seen. The lateral cervical view in this book does not, for instance, show a prevertebral soft tissue shadow, and the spinolaminal line is barely discernable. All images are similarly affected -- the images are comparable to reading old-fashioned copy films rather than originals. In addition, some views are excessively collimated, such as the A-P cervical view which fails to show the full extent of the transverse processes of C7 --an important feature in evaluating thoracic outlet syndromes. 3) With few exceptions, the images in this text are of adults, not children (who have dramatically different normal radiographic features). 4) Although all views are named, no diagrams or instructions are given to indicate how a particular view was obtained. Some may argue that this text is not meant to be a positioning manual, but view names are not necessarily universal, making the task of requesting a particular view based on this text difficult, especially since this text originates from Germany. For example, a "Lauenstein" view of the hip joint is demonstrated. Most American x-ray techs have probably not heard of this term, making request of this view difficult unless one already recognizes that this is a lateral (frog) view of the hip joint. No text can possibly give all alternate terms for a view, which is why a small diagram illustrating patient positioning would make it much easier for a clinician to order a study, in any language, patterned after one demonstrated in this text.

In my opinion, the shortcomings of this text are severe enough to exclude it from serious consideration.

great book for all sonographers. Clear pictures, quick references. I highly recommend it to anyone, from students to experienced techs.

I liked the first edition, eventhough there were a lot of images that were repeated over and over again(I would give it 4 stars- there are no other books like this that shows all the protocols you need, so I'll give the author credit for that). I bought the new one only to find myself looking at an identical book. There were hardly any added images in the second edition and it's not worth getting. My advice, stick to the first edition if you already have it. Buy the second edition "only" if you don't have the first edition.

I recently graduated from the Florida Institute of Ultrasound. I desperatly needed some help in my new job remembering protocols, measurements, and how my images should appear before turning them in to the radiologist. This book has been a life saver! It's easy reference markers allows me to quickly find the subject I need, review protocol, and still have the patient out without prolonging the exam. A must have for new graduates.

This book would make a perfect companion for an introductory course in medical imaging or for someone who does not have an engineering background, but the book would have more appeal if a more in-depth treatment on the math. and physics of imaging is given. Simply too superficial.

It is a pretty conprehensive and deep book and definitely covers a lot of medical imaging techniques. However, it did not help too much in my biomedical imaging class Duke University.

This book provides introductory overviews of X-ray, ultrasound, MRI, and radionuclide medical imaging techniques and technologies. I found it to be an excellent text for anyone with a scientific background wanting to quickly understanding these different imaging techniques. Each chapter makes liberal use of charts, diagrams, and images to quickly convey key concepts. Each chapter also provides a long list of references for further reading. A very clear, easy-to-read text.

I bought this text in used condition for my first Radiographic Anatomy class. The radiographs are on one page with the labeled drawings on the opposing page. And the drawings fit the radiograph so you can make a clear copy to place over the radiograph. Almost Perfect -- I would have liked to have more examples - broken bones, various diseases, etc. The sample radiographs are clear and the opposing labels are also straight forward.

This book is not a bad place to start for basic radiologic anatomy, but it has far too little detail in the neuroanatomy area for a radiology resident. It is a good choice for medical students or non-radiologists.

As mentioned in the prior review, the pictures are small and the findings can be difficult to see. I also agree that there is too much quality control in the first section -- I wish I had the time I spent on that back. The book seems to emphasize discussion over case recognition, which wasn't what I was hoping for. Then again, a fair amount of mammography is how you manage a finding, so maybe that is okay. Although there is room for improvement, this is as good a book as I could find, is a reasonable length, and is relatively affordable. I will supplement with web-based teaching files.

This "Case Review Series" installment was a close call, barely making it in time for the oral boards in 2006. . . but perhaps they shouldn't have hurried so much.

The pictures are small, and this is not entirely necessary. Plenty of real estate on the image pages goes unused. Maybe that's not strong enough. . . . they're tiny and often non-diagnostic. Maybe it should come with a magnifying glass?

The opening portion of the book spends far too much time on QC, a subject that reportedly does not come up frequently on oral boards. The first few cases are a bit self-congratulatory, possibly overstating the wonderfulness of breast imaging. The text is otherwise comprehensive, however, covering the essentials as well as some more esoteric entities.

The old-fashioned convention of displaying mammo films backwards (you'll see what I mean as you try to figure out the first cases) needs to stop. There is no shiny side on digital images, and this is simply the way things are going. Hang the films (and compose the images in the text) anatomically, as the ABR does on the oral boards, with the right breast on the patient's right side.

There are numerous spelling mistakes, which are similarly baffling. Doesn't anybody proof-read these publications? I understand that the word "granulomateous" might cause problems with any spell checker (p. 48) and "peduculated" masses (p. 46) might not be on the tip of MS Word's spellchecker tongue. Dutch readers (and this is important, because confusing spelling is terrible for the many non-native speakers who buy these books) will get a chuckle out of "macro*lul*ated" (p. 52). I'll let you look that up. The word "pathognomonic" even gets spelled three different ways in this text. I'll let you find them.

Fun aside, don't these texts get read by Physicians/professionals prior to release? I've noticed this to be a problem with other installments of the Case Review Series, some of which really seem slapped together. I could understand if these were roll-your-own $12.00 self-published guides (maybe what we really need?) but this book cost over $40.00 and has a glossy shiny cover, multiple authors and a "Series Editor". We're talking about a large chunk of a Resident's daily salary. Don't we deserve better?

Finally, why do these books spend their first 14 pages telling you how great the series is and how wonderful all of their helpers, residents, medical students and progeny are. It starts to sound like a night at the Oscars. It also makes you resentful when you are underwhelmed by the actual text that follows. More time on development, less on writing yet another foreward.

Anyhow, truth is, they've got you over a barrel. You'll buy this book because you're scared, you don't have anything else to review and other review books are even more hideously expensive (I also own Uwe Fischer's book). I did buy this and would probably again. It is more than adequate. . . Be kind and hand-it-down to a 3rd year after you get your scores.

Her nephew enjoys breaking into the rooms of frat brothers whom he does not know. One time he took this guys chair while he was asleep. The nephew entered the room through the fire escape.

Rodeo!

Aunt Barbara, don't worry about what my friend Ian said. He was just being mean. If I understood anything about ortopedic radiology, I'm sure I'd love the book.