Pleural Disease–Lung Biology in Health and Disease, Volume 186.

Pleural Disease–Lung Biology in Health and Disease, Volume 186.
Edited by D. Bouros
Published by Marcel Dekker, Inc., New York, USA.
Pages: 1040. Price: \#8364;202.16, £250. ISBN: 0-8247-4027-0

This is the second volume in the series ‘Lung Biology in Health and Disease’ on the pleura after ‘The Pleura in Health and Disease’, which was edited as Volume 30 in 1985 by Jacques Chrétien, Jean Bignon and Albert Hirsch. So it may be of interest to compare the two volumes and look for differing aspects. Claude Lenfant was editor of both volumes, and five authors of the 1985 volume contributed again to the 2004 volume, which has 162 extra pages. Eighty-two authors are completely new. Also new is the chapter on the history of pleural disease. Overall, the new book concentrates less on basics and is much more clinically oriented. There are special chapters on imaging and ultrasound. Thoracoscopy is today called ‘medical thoracoscopy’, and the chapter on ‘Open pleural biopsy’ is replaced by the chapter ‘Diagnostic video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery’ and ‘Therapeutic use of thoracoscopy’. Several other new chapters are ‘Interventional radiology’, ‘Pleural lavage as a diagnostic and research tool’, ‘Animals models in pleural investigation’, ‘Pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics in pleural fluid’, ‘The pleural space in organ transplantation’, ‘Pleurodesis’, ‘Pleuroperitoneal shunts’; as well as ‘Discrimination between transudative and exudative pleural effusions’ and ‘Differentiating between benign and malignant pleural effusions’.

Special chapters are devoted to the important clinical entities such as immunological diseases, blood diseases, HIV and tuberculous pleuritis. As well as pleural effusions in children, in cardiac disease, in pregnancy and gynaecological diseases, in the intensive care unit, in gastrointestinal tract diseases, in pulmonary embolism, in fungal, nocardial, and actinomycotic infection, in parasitic infection, and to iatrogenic and rare pleural effusions. Further chapters concentrate on pneumothorax, haemothorax and chylothorax. At the end of each chapter, the latest references are given.

This book is written by internationally well-known contributors and is of interest to clinicians and basic researchers or pharmacologists. It gives a comprehensive overview of the present knowledge on pleural diseases and should be included in every medical library.