Ultrastructural Appearances of Tumours: A Diagnostic Atlas

797 The management of malignant teratoma is then summarized stage by stage by Professor Peckham and the book is completed with chapters on testicular tumours in childhood and extragonadal germ-cell tumours. This book is a detailed and authoritative account of this area of malignant disease. My main reservation is that it is perhaps too detailed for the general reader, whereas for the person with a specialist interest the information will become dated. Nevertheless it is clearly to be recommended for anybody seeking information about the modern management of testicular tumours. This issue concentrates on areas of thyroid disease in which there have been recent advances in our understanding of pathology, pathogenesis or methods of investigation. After an initial chapter on the pathology of the cold nodule, the following 4 chapters are devoted to the pathological findings and the role of aspiration cytology and needle biopsy in the management of thyroid disease. Both the Karolinska hospital team (aspiration cytology) and the Boston group (needle biopsy) present excellent results, which explain why the present discussion is centred around the best type of biopsy technique rather than whether biopsy has any role in management. Unfortunately, in the case of aspiration, a vital necessity, a specially interested and knowledgeable cytopatholo-gist is not available in many regions. The other areas covered in the remainder of the book include radiation-induced thyroid tumours, the relationship between malig-nancy and dyshormonogenic goitre, the interpretation of thyroid tissue in cervical lymph nodes, hereditary medullary thyroid carcinoma and malignant lymphoma of the thyroid. This is yet another excellent contribution in an established series of "Clinics in Endocrinology and Metabolism". The pathologist will be interested in the whole book, the clinician will concentrate on the management of radiation-induced thyroid disease and medullary thyroid cancer and the potential role of biopsy (aspiration cytology or needle) in the management of patients with a solitary cold nodule. Skeletal scintigraphy is a well established, though in some respects controversial method of evaluating skeletal function and pathology. Although there are several atlases available, there has not previously been a book devoted to the subject. It was with keen anticipation, therefore, that the reviewer read through this volume, unfortunately to be disappointed. The book is based on a course organized by the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Leiden. Like many such volumes the book is incomplete and unbalanced. Almost 70 pages and 4 of the 13 …

The management of malignant teratoma is then summarized stage by stage by Professor Peckham and the book is completed with chapters on testicular tumours in childhood and extragonadal germ-cell tumours.
This book is a detailed and authoritative account of this area of malignant disease. My main reservation is that it is perhaps too detailed for the general reader, whereas for the person with a specialist interest the information will become dated. Nevertheless it is clearly to be recommended for anybody seeking information about the modern management of testicular tumours.
G. READ Pathology and Management of Thyroid Disease. Ed. E. D. WILLIAMS (1981 This issue concentrates on areas of thyroid disease in which there have been recent advances in our understanding of pathology, pathogenesis or methods of investigation. After an initial chapter on the pathology of the cold nodule, the following 4 chapters are devoted to the pathological findings and the role of aspiration cytology and needle biopsy in the management of thyroid disease. Both the Karolinska hospital team (aspiration cytology) and the Boston group (needle biopsy) present excellent results, which explain why the present discussion is centred around the best type of biopsy technique rather than whether biopsy has any role in management. Unfortunately, in the case of aspiration, a vital necessity, a specially interested and knowledgeable cytopathologist is not available in many regions.
The other areas covered in the remainder of the book include radiation-induced thyroid tumours, the relationship between malignancy and dyshormonogenic goitre, the interpretation of thyroid tissue in cervical lymph nodes, hereditary medullary thyroid carcinoma and malignant lymphoma of the thyroid.
This is yet another excellent contribution in an established series of "Clinics in Endocrinology and Metabolism". The pathologist will be interested in the whole book, the clinician will concentrate on the management of radiation-induced thyroid disease and medullary thyroid cancer and the potential role of biopsy ( Skeletal scintigraphy is a well established, though in some respects controversial method of evaluating skeletal function and pathology. Although there are several atlases available, there has not previously been a book devoted to the subject. It was with keen anticipation, therefore, that the reviewer read through this volume, unfortunately to be disappointed. The book is based on a course organized by the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Leiden. Like many such volumes the book is incomplete and unbalanced. Almost 70 pages and 4 of the 13 chapters are devoted to metabolic disease of bone, whereas infection is dismissed in 6 pages, and there is no mention of the role of scintigraphy in discitis or tuberculotic skeletal infection. Furthermore, the role of scintigraphy in the arthritises (including ankylosing spondylitis) is not mentioned, nor are the recently described techniques of using sterilisable probes at surgery to accurately localise osteoid osteomas.
The individual chapters are variable. Some are disappointing whereas others are excellent, e.g. the chapter by Ell and colleagues on "Recent Developments in Bone Scanning". This beautifully presented book is in the form of an atlas intended as an aid to the histopathological diagnosis of human tumours. It consists of a brief Part I, dealing with the principle of application of the technique, and with the general properties of the neoplastic cell, while most of the book (Part II), is a substantial assembly of electron micrographs each with a brief descriptive legend.
The tumours are dealt with in groups, the first, for example, covering epithelial tumours, neural tumours, and tumours of the soft and hard supporting tissues, while each of the 27 chapters has a page or so of introductory text.
In the Foreword the book is described as being specially useful to "beginners in diagnostic microscopy" and "pathologists in training". I feel, however, that this usefulness will be much reduced by the exclusion of light-microscope material. Since light microscopy, as the authors themselves point out, is an indispensable prelude to electron microscopy, it is unfortunate that H & E light micrographs were omitted. "Restrictions of space", by which the authors excuse themselves in the preface, does not seem to be compatible with the amount of open space in this book. I counted over 90 pages (from some 400 pages) where half or more was unused.
However, the book is to be recommended through its extensive coverage of the wide realm of human neoplasia, its large number of excellent electron micrographs, many of which are full-page (18 x 23 cm) as well as a bibliography approaching 2000 references. A histopathologist with access to electronmicroscope facilities will undoubtedly find it of great interest and value. Spontaneous immune disorders in experimental animals have been, and continue to be, of great value in the study of normal immune function. In fact the scientific exploitation of natural and induced specific immune dysfunctions often provides the most compelling evidence for the contribution of a particular component of the immune system to host resistance.
Within their covers these volumes provide comprehensive and well-presented descriptions of the better-characterized natural immune dysfunctions; information which has previously been unavailable in such an accessible form.
Vol. I concentrates on models of immunologic incompetence, including selective T-cell, B-cell and macrophage deficiencies, while Vol. II examines auto-allergic diseases, including those which exhibit similarities to human autoimmune conditions. In addition to those concerned with immune dysfunction and disease, chapters describing the influence of the genome and germ-free environments on immune function are included.
Both volumes provide valuable material for both the specialist and those with a more general interest in the immune system and are recommended unreservedly.
This is not a text book but an elegantly produced collection of essays on some of the difficult management areas in gynaecological oncology. The editor has certainly identified contentious problems in all areas of gynaecological malignant disease, and has in some situations positively encouraged sequential essays arguing different management policies for the same condition, and often using the same references. Each section is carefully introduced but it is unfortunate that the editor fails to provide any adjudication. The finer points of the management of pelvic lymph nodes in vulval carcinoma, the extraperitoneal dissection of nodes in carcinoma of the cervix and different therapeutic approaches to the management of ovarian carcinoma, get a very full airing, and all discourses of these are good. For completeness of approach, there are also philosophical essays on "gynaecological oncology as a United States sub-speciality", "the importance of immunological assessment", and "the preservation of ovarian function". This is a strictly contemporary text for the experienced gynaecologist and it is a pity that the better essays will quickly be lost, since this book cannot hope to become a reference volume.
R. HUNTER