¹Sir William Dunn School of Pathology, Oxford, UK

It is a testimony to the pace of haematopoietic stem cell transplantation that a third edition of this splendid edited volume emerges just 4 years after the second edition. What is disappointing is that only about 10 of the 200 or so contributors were chosen from outside the USA, and none from the UK. This does not do justice to some of the centres outside the USA that have pioneered important developments in transplantation.

That said, most areas in the field are generally well covered. The first section of the book covers the basic principles underlying the science, and its therapeutic translation with excellent review chapters on histocompatibility, stem cell biology, radiotherapeutic principles, gene transfer, detection of minimal residual disease and the pathophysiology of graft-versus-host disease (GVHD). The chapter on mechanisms underlying tolerance was detailed on aspects of deletional tolerance, but weak on modern developments with regulatory T cells, especially as such cells are known to powerfully moderate GVHD in murine models. A striking omission was the lack of an authoritative chapter on NK cells, their genetics and biology. As this has been one of the most prolific areas of the immunobiology of transplantation in recent years, this is indeed regrettable.

The second section covers patient-related issues covering areas such as counselling, administration, nursing, the patient's viewpoint, ethical, psychosocial, quality of life and sexuality. Section 3 reviews sources of stem cell donors with chapters ranging from procurement and processing, donor selection, use of cord blood, in utero transplantation, stem cell mobilisation in peripheral blood, cryopreservation, use of growth factors and donor registries.

Section 4 covers the major complications associated with clinical practice and their management, with fine chapters on GVHD itself, and then a range of chapters to embrace the range of microbial infections, organ-specific complications, transfusion support, immune reconstitution, vaccination, nutritional support, pain management, growth and development, as well as other delayed complications and secondary malignancies.

The range of acquired diseases benefiting from stem cell transplantation are discussed in Section 5. Most chapters cover transplantation for malignancies, but the chapters on both partially matched and unrelated transplants deserve some mention, for at least mentioning NK cell receptors and polymorphism as an issue.

Section 6 gives abundant coverage to autologous stem cell transplantation, with a number of authors commenting on the need for proper randomised trials, and the impressive developments in non-myeloablative transplantation that may offer advantages from harnessing of graft vs tumour activity. I still remain puzzled at the efforts expended in autologous transplantation in autoimmunity, where I would have reasoned that it was far safer to remove the lymphocytes in the host with antibodies such as alemtuzumab than to remove them from marrow transplanted into a conditioned host.

Section 7 offers some worthwhile contributions on the current status of stem cell transplantation in inherited disease. The case for customised approaches to restoring function in immune deficiency is well argued, and indeed the section allows the book to end on a high-note of optimism.