Optical CoherenceTomography of

Ocular Disease,2nd ed.

Schulman JS, Puliafito CA, and Fuji-moto JG, eds. Thorofare, New Jersey:SLACK Incorporated, 2004. Hardcover,illustrated, 736 pages, $289.95

Rarely does a 700� page bookserve as a powerful advertise-ment for a single new technol-ogy, but—intentional or not—this extraordinary book is theultimate advertisement (as wellas the bible) of OCT interpreta-tion. At the present time, OCThas no equal in revealing theintricate details of vitreal-retinaldisorders, and is sometimesthe only available technologycapable of detecting select pa-thologies.

The text’s primary objective isto illustrate the clinical presen-tation of the posterior segmentin health and disease by compar-ing conventional procedures(such as fundus photography,fluorescein angiography, andvisual fields) to OCT cross-

sectional images. This secondedition of an already excellenttext is a completely revised andupdated version that incorpo-rates more than 1,600 color im-ages to meet its objective. Onecould argue that OCT is the sin-gle most important technologyfor viewing the fundus sinceHelmholtz invented the oph-thalmoscope, back in 1850. It isalso as equally non-invasive.Dilation helps, the light sourceis easily tolerable, and the dataacquisition is surprisinglyrapid. The high-resolutioncross-sectional images affordedby the OCT approach the detailcontained in an ocular anatomytextbook and is already provingas vital to the eye clinician asthe CT and MRI are to the neu-rologist.

The book contains 14 chaptersthat are divided into four sec-tions: (1) Principles of Opera-tion and Interpretation; (2) Op-tical Coherence Tomography inRetinal Disease; (3) Optical Co-herence Tomography in Glau-coma, Neuro-ophthalmology, andthe Anterior Segment; and asection of Appendices. The em-phasis and strength of the bookis on the OCT in retinal dis-eases, with nearly 500 pagesspread over 11 major chaptersdevoted to virtually all clini-cally encountered retinal disor-ders. The section on glaucomapresents exemplary cases andcontrasts disk photographs andthreshold fields with OCT disktopography and OCT retinalnerve fiber layer analysis. Thereader is left with the impres-sion that the OCT nerve fiberlayer measurements correspondbetter to visual-field resultsthan do the disk topographyfindings. Some clinicians willneed to first review the intrica-

cies of retinal anatomy and—inorder to best utilize this re-markable new technology—tolearn for the first time thecross-sectional presentations ofvarious vitreal and retinal pa-thologies. Not only does theOCT help the clinician arrive atthe correct diagnosis by reveal-ing detail not observable withany form of ophthalmoscopy,the non-invasive OCT oftenteaches us about the histo-pathology of select disorders,but without sacrificing tissue. Amedical retinal specialist re-cently asked me about the bookand if it was a worthwhile in-vestment in time and money.My response was that if onechooses to stay current in thedifferential diagnosis of vitreal-retinal disorders, the book is anabsolute must. I highly recom-mend it to all ophthalmic clini-cians with interest in vitreal-retinal disorders. The book willalso prove to be helpful to thoseinterested in the early detectionof glaucoma by assessing theOCT nerve fiber layer measure-ments. Any clinician who usesan ophthalmoscope can be-come a better diagnostician byfrequently referring to the bookand reviewing the fundus pho-tographs of the various retinaldisorders, the corresponding flu-orescein angiograms, and theOCT cross-sectional images. Onescarcely knows which to admiremore: the authors’ collectiveknowledge of vitreal-retinaldisease and OCT interpreta-tion, or the remarkable, reveal-ing images contained in thehundreds of exemplary casescontained in this superbly pro-duced text.

Jerome Sherman, O.D.New York, New York

BOOK NOTES

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VOLUME 76 / NUMBER 9 / SEPTEMBER 2005 OPTOMETRY