Nuclear medicine, once considered somewhat removed from the daily practice of Neuroradiology, has entered our lives, particularly (but not exclusively) in the area of head and neck radiology.

The recently published book PET-CT Hybrid Imaging written by Drs. Schober and Heindel with contributions from 31 other authors (the majority of whom are from Munster Hospital in Germany), takes the reader from the Basic Principals to Imaging of Neoplastic Diseases to Imaging of Inflammatory, Cardiovascular and Neurodegenerative Diseases.  The book ends with an Appendix with useful websites for PET imaging along with limited glossary of terms (this is actually less useful than the 5-page listing of abbreviations found in the front of the book).  To this reviewer, the book gave the opportunity to review fundamentals of PET imaging and to review the benefit of PET/CT imaging in head and neck tumors as well as to understand some of the problems inherent in imaging this area.

The book will be useful for the entire Department.  While a neuroradiologist would not necessarily purchase this book, it would be one to recommend to a Departmental library so it could serve as a ready reference.

This small 109-page soft cover monograph is mainly intended for clinicians who deal with movement disorders. It covers Parkinson’s Disease (25% of the book), Parkinson Syndromes (MSA, PSP, Lewy Body dementia, CBD, and other Parkinson producing diseases), Dystonia, Essential Tremor, Restless Leg Syndrome, and other movement disorders such as Tourettes’s Syndrome, Chorea, Ballismus, Myoclonus and the like. Imaging is present, however, it is not a central focus of this monograph; rather, the authors primarily discuss issues such as pathophysiology, treatment, and neurologic findings. This is a nice summary of the field for those who have a particular interest in movement disorders.

This pocket-sized, soft cover, 428-page color atlas is designed as a review of the anatomy, development, neurophysiology, and functional anatomy of the central and peripheral nervous system. The descriptions of each of these areas are succinct and beautifully illustrated with color diagrams and pictures (there are no CT or MR images). The authors have wisely positioned the color diagrams on right hand pages and written material on the left hand pages, making cross referencing simple. This correlative information between function and anatomy is excellent and can serve as a strong review of functional neuroanatomy.

Although this clearly is not a neuroradiology textbook, it is nonetheless fascinating.

The author of this 500-page hardcover book, Dr. Jan Dirk Blom, has compiled innumerable short vignettes related to a host of different medical terms, biographical sketches, physiological phenomena, psychological disorders, geophysical observations, and the like, most of which seem to have had their origin from imaginings, frank hallucination, dreams, or the disclosures of mysterious “facts.” The list of described features is amazing — who was Charles Dogeon, how to explain the moon illusion (or superillusion) or Charpentier’s illusion, the meaning of CRPS (complex regional pain syndrome), the description of the first case of Alzheimer ’s disease involving auditory hallucinations, etc, etc. These phenomena/hallucinations/illusions are listed alphabetically, and they number in the hundreds, many with accompanying pictures.

Convince your library to buy a copy, check it out, and then spend and enjoyable evening thumbing through these stories, histories, and explanations.

This Pocket Atlas of 400 pages is a reference for radiology technologists relative to basic anatomic structures on plain radiographs, GI flouro, arthrography, arteriography venography, myelography, and bronchography. It is not intended, nor is it suitable for, radiologists or radiology residents. It features side-by side radiographs and corresponding line drawings adequately labelled.

This is an extremely well-illustrated and comprehensive collection of the existing literature regarding dural cavernous sinus fistulas (CCFs).  It was a real pleasure to read, and I would recommend it to neuro-interventionalists and neuro-ophthalmologists of all levels of training and experience.  It would be a great resource for diagnostic neuroradiologists, but its focus on the clinical features and endovascular treatment of these complex lesions probably move it from the stack of required reading.

There are only 9 chapters in this 300-page book.   The anatomical and pathological images and descriptions are simply outstanding.  Dr. Benndorf begins with a historical chapter, well-illustrated (a consistent theme), including the evolution of the diagnosis of causes of pulsating exophthalmos.  This is followed by chapters on (2) the osseous anatomy of the cavernous sinus and environs, (3) the classification schemes for dural CCFs, (4) etiology and natural history, (5) an outstanding chapter on neuro-ophthalmologic symptoms and differential diagnosis, (6) radiological diagnosis, (7) endovascular treatment, (8) alternative treatments such as manual compression, surgery and radiation, and (9) hemodynamic aspects of dural CCFs.

I can only identify three limitations of this book, and both are minor and mitigated.  First, the recent introduction of ethyl vinyl alcohol co-polymer (EVAL) precluded much discussion in the therapeutic options.   While this liquid agent has some real potential (and danger) for use in this condition, the basic principles of transvenous approaches are handled well.  Second, there is no discussion of arterial approaches.  With the advent of EVAL, these approaches have some therapeutic potential.   The real contribution of this book is really the width and breadth of the anatomic and pathologic content, however.  What a great collection of dural CCFs in all their glory!  Finally, the actual pathological nature of these acquired lesions remains a mystery, and their origins remain a subject of speculation.   The existing literature is nicely summarized.

In summary, this is a very nice contribution to the literature.  I recommend this book to anyone with an interest in the angio-architecture of the cavernous sinuses as well as all the specialties mentioned above.  The anatomic and pathologic illustrations are more than worth it.

This seventh volume of Radiosurgery presents selected and edited papers presented at the 2007 Congress of the International Stereotactic Radiation Society held in San Francisco, California.  This Congress included presentations from all areas of radiosurgery and from all body sites, not just brain.

The volume is broken up into several sections, each dealing with one general area.  The initial section examines questions in the physics, imaging, and radiobiology of stereotactic treatment and consists of 11 papers.  The next section examines cranial radiosurgery of benign tumors with the predominance of the 9 papers examining treatment dealing with Schwannomas and acoustic neuromas.  A 5-paper section on cranial radiosurgery of malignant tumors follows with 60% of these dealing with metastatic disease.  The volume closes with smaller sections that deal with cranial radiosurgery for vascular malformations and for pain, a section on spinal radiosurgery and a section on body radiosurgery

The book is not an exhaustive presentation of the literature, and the papers were selected from those presented.  The data is old by now but still of interest, so those involved in stereotactic radiosurgery would probably be aware of its contents by this time.  The volume would certainly have had more appeal had it been published in a more timely fashion.

Interventional radiology is a difficult topic to teach and learn.  The text RadCases: Interventional Radiology is aimed at preparing radiology residents both for their clinical rotations in IR as well as their dreaded trip to Louisville.  This book contains 100 cases and access to 150 more cases online. The cases shown are a mix of what is seen commonly in practice as well as cases a resident might encounter during the ABR examination.

The discussions are brief, almost to a fault, but the bullet points make for easy reading.  The online cases are simple to access and view, all with high image quality.  It is difficult for a case book in interventional not to rely heavily on angiography; nevertheless the authors have made a good effort to include multiple CT, MR, and ultrasound images.

Compared to the recently reviewed book Vascular and Interventional Imaging, Case Review Series, the book reviewed here contains fewer cases, the images are smaller (the authors should have taken advantage of unused space on many pages to make the images larger) and the discussions are shorter.  The Case Review Series is better organized with cases organized into 3 levels of difficulty. It also  contains a list of the cases;  it  has questions for each case which makes for more active learning, and  it  also emphasizes patient management to a greater extent than  the RadCases book. Nonetheless, the advantages of this book are the straight forward bullet format and additional cases which are available online for one year.

While not designed for the practicing neurosurgeon this soft-covered, 660-page, multi-authored (81 authors) text entitled Neurosurgery is well suited for neuroradiologists who wish to have a survey text describing the major concepts in neurosurgery in terms of diagnostic evaluation, differential consideration and treatment. To this reviewer, the text would be valuable to any section’s library and, in fact, to one’s personal library.

After introducing basic anatomy and diagnostic testing, there, in consequent order, are chapters on (1) brain tumors (adult and pediatric), (2) vascular lesions (aneurysms, AVMs, Dural AVFs intracebral hemorrhage) (3) head trauma, (4) developmental/acquired anomalies (adult and pediatric), (5) spinal tumors, (6) degenerative disk disease, (7) spinal: vascular disease infections, trauma, (8) peripheral nerve: injuries, lesions, compressions/entrapment, (9) cranial nerve compressions syndromes, (10) congenital brain and spinal anomalies, (11) functional and stereotactic neurosurgery for epilepsy, pain, movement disorders, (12) miscellaneous items such as radiosurgery, image guided NSG, and neurosurgical critical care.

As would be expected, there is no material on many neurologic diseases which don’t pertain to neurosurgery such as white matter disease, metabolic disorders and ischemic cerebral infarction. In a sense, the text is superficial in its coverage of complex disease and their treatment, but for a text trying to cover this entire field within limited space, the result is creditable and informative.

One only needs to read through this short 93-page soft-covered handbook to realize the ubiquitous nature of the APS (Hughes) Syndrome and how the prevalence of this syndrome varies with age. The first few pages deal with the various types of antiphospholipid antibodies (such as the Lupus anticoagulant and the anticardiolpin antibodies), and this short monograph then goes on to describe and illustrate the many syndromes associated with the presence of antiphospholipid antibodies (both primary and secondary). Of particular interest to readers of the AJNR is the explanations of the various CNS manifestations such as cerebral ischemia, epilepsy, dural venous thrombosis, transverse myelopathy, and MS like lesions on MR. The percentage of patients with such findings who have APS is surprisingly high. This book goes on to describe and illustrate other organ system involvement such as cardiac (vascular and coronary artery), skin, renal, obstetrical, diffuse vasculopathy, musculoskeletal. The differential diagnosis of APS in different areas and the treatment of APS are the final chapters.