H-P Lipp editor:

558 pp, New York, Marcel Dekker, 1999 ($195.00).

This multiauthored book was edited by a German pharmacologist-pharmacist, aided by a dozen German and American oncologists-clinical pharmacologists. It consists of 13 chapters, most of which were written or co-authored by the editor himself, reflecting the fact that this book is a an expanded and revised version of the editor’s 1995 monograph on the same and related topics.

The first part of the book (∼200 pages) deals with the basic pharmacokinetics of cytostatic drugs. As expected, this part contains formulas, graphs, and numerical data. Although these data are often presented in clinical context, this part will be read only by those seeking specific information on a specific drug. In the second part of the book, devoted to organ-specific toxicity of most widely used cytotoxic drugs, the emphasis is more on clinical aspects of drug toxicity, and, accordingly, this part will be of more interest to clinicians, especially oncologists, clinical pharmacologists, and toxicologists. However, I think that it will have limited appeal to pathologists.

Each chapter is accompanied by references, the most recent of which are from 1997. Even so, the book is a valuable source of basic facts regarding common anticancer drugs. I see the book as being used primarily as a library reference, and I assume that it will be updated periodically in the future.