Hoffman GS Weyand CM, editors:

Inflammatory Diseases of Blood Vessels, 840 pp, New York, Marcel Dekker, Inc., 2001 ($225.00).

This book is divided into three major sections: 1) scientific basis for health and disease; 2) primary vasculitides; and 3) secondary vasculitides. The first part is essentially an attempt to understand the pathophysiology of vasculitis, beginning with an overview and continuing with in-depth analyses of multiple putative factors, including endothelial cell adhesion molecules, extracellular matrix, autoantibodies, T-cells, neutrophils, oxygen metabolites, cytokines, and Fc receptors. Three chapters are devoted to inflammatory, infectious aspects and cellular immune responses in atherosclerosis. One chapter is devoted to angiogenesis regulation. The final chapter summarizes the animal models of vasculitis. As one can assume, the exact relevance and importance of all of these subjects to human vasculitic syndromes is unknown. Nevertheless, this section sets forth a reasonable approach for analyzing the basis for vasculitis at this point in time. The next section, primary vasculitides, begins with historical perspectives and continues with general approaches, histopathology, radiological imaging techniques, and then deals with the various vasculitic syndromes. There are 23 chapters in this section, which forms an important source area for clinically useful and relevant material. Many of the authors are well known to those interested in vasculitis. Finally, the book finishes with a section on secondary vasculitis that includes 14 chapters. This section, again, is clinically relevant, for the most part, and presents a comprehensive analysis of the area.

This volume stands out, in my experience, as having the most chapters (52) and authors (90) of any book on the subject of vasculitis that I have ever encountered. This, of course, means that there is some redundancy and variation of quality. However, as an overall source book from all standpoints, this book is an outstanding contribution and is highly recommended.