76 Book reviews / Clinical Imaging 33 (2009) 75 – 76
approach to the pediatric patient should be especially
helpful to the radiology resident on his/her first rotation
on pediatric radiology.
Paula W. Brill, MD
doi:10.1016/j.clinimag.2008.10.003
Atlas of PET/CT with SPECT/CT
RL Wahl, O Israel (Eds). Philadelphia, PA: Saunders/Elsevier;
2008, 287 pages, DVD incl., ISBN: 978-1-4160-3361-5.
In the spirit of “full disclosure”, this reviewer generally
does not like “atlases”. I state this to put into perspective the
remainder of this review. This volume, “Atlas of PET/CT
with SPECT/CT” is easily the best atlas I have seen, read, or
used in nuclear medicine over a 39-year career in imaging.
Edited by Richard Wahl and Ora Israel, the eight sections are
co-authored by them and seven colleagues from their
respective institutions and are based on their collective
experience since 2001 of over 15,000 studies.
The Table of Contents identifies eight sections, one of
which is a review of the technology and instrumentation.
This is followed by six PET/CT sections dealing with various
organ systems and body parts. Each section includes
examples of normal function and anatomy as well as
physiology or anatomic variants. This is most helpful as it
provides the reader with a basis for the clinical judgment that
is needed in progressing from identification of a Finding to
synthesis of an Impression. Each image set is followed by
brief text detailing the clinical history, the findings on the
image set, and a few sentences that provide the “Main
Teaching Points and Summary”.
The last section is devoted to SPECT/CT and is divided
into nine subsets based on specific imaging applications such
as 111 In-DTPA-pentetreotide, 123 I-MIBG, 131 I-sodium
iodide, 67Ga-galiium citrate, and so on. These subsets are
all quite thorough in providing excellent examples of
physiologic variants (pitfalls to interpretation) as well as
the scope of abnormal findings.
The image sets are well done and generally include
maximum intensity projection as well as appropriate cross-
sectional images including color for the fusion image. The
image quality is well above average, but I had initially
thought that this feature could be better—and then I found a
DVD that is included in each volume. This DVD includes all
of the images as printed in the volume. Much of its use is
intuitive. Clicking on the page reproduction of image and
text provides a full screen of the image sets sans text. A small
manual is provided (as a pamphlet and a DVD accessible
section) which apparently provides directions for further
image manipulation. At the time of this writing, I have not
fully deciphered those instructions but I am more than
pleased with this atlas.
I like this atlas very much. It will serve radiology and
nuclear medicine residents as well as their instructors with a
teaching set. It will be useful to them and to practitioners as a
tool to review what they have learned earlier and by
providing a convenient “expert” that can be consulted
when needed.
Stanley J. Goldsmith, MD
doi:10.1016/j.clinimag.2008.10.004
Practical differential diagnosis for CT and MRI
EC Lin, EJ Escott, KD Garg, AG Bleicher, D Alexander (Eds).
New York/Stuttgart: Thieme; 2008, 304 pages, no illustrations,
US$ 39.95, ISBN: 978-1-58890-655-7.
This very inexpensive book achieves successfully all the
goals which the authors proposed in the Preface. It is a
valuable guide which will help any radiologist in his/her
analysis of CT and MRI scans.
The book, which does not have any illustrations, is
divided into several chapters dealing with the brain, the head
and neck, the chest, the abdomen, the pelvis, the skeletal and
musculo-tendinous systems, the spine, and the medullary
canal.
There are 149 subchapters, rarely surpassing more than
three pages, which present precise and useful data helping in
reaching the correct diagnosis of the images obtained by CD
or MRI. In each chapter are one or more very useful tables,
and up-to-date references. This textbook has been written
with the same spirit of Gamuts in Radiology by Felson and
Ressler, and this comparison carries a sign of its quality.
The authors have succeeded in their purposes: the book
will be of help to the junior residents in their daily routines
and also to the more senior radiologists. Therefore, the place
of this book is in the workstation of any Department of
Radiology to be easily consulted by anyone dealing with CT
and/or MRI.
Jean Noël Bruneton, MD
doi:10.1016/j.clinimag.2008.10.005