ANNALS OF :BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING ~, 421 (1977)

Book Review

Present and Future of Diagnostic Ultrasound, by Inn Donald and Salvador Levi et al. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1976. 211 pages.

This book is essentially the Proceedings of the Third Symposium of the Fondation pour la Recherche en Endocrinologie Sexuelle et l 'Etude de la Reproduction Humaine held at Brussels, Belgium 9-10 May, 1975. The book is, as its Preface purports, an overview of the entire field of clinical ultrasound. Each chapter is written by an expert in some aspect of clinical ultrasound. In addition to a chapter each on the technical aspects and biological effects of ultrasound, the following clinical areas are covered: (1) obstetrics and gynecology, (2) neurology, (3) the peripheral vascular system, (4) ophthalmology, (5) eehocardiology, (6) the cerebrovascular systems, (7) the breast,, (8) gastroenterology, (9) the thyroid and salivary glands, (10) urology, and (11) nephrology.

The book's strength lies in two areas. Foremost, it is a rather complete over- view of the field. Thus an engineer or physician wanting to acquire a quick introduction would profit by reading it. It reads easily from a physician's point of view but might be a bit difficult in vocabulary for an engineer. As a second point, on the whole, it does not tend to overstate ultrasound's role in medicine, which many articles tend to do.

As various authors were involved, the quality of presentation varies, but, at worst, it is still adequate for its purpose.

Its main weakness is that it is one to two years behind the state of the art. Little was presented on grey scale ultrasound, which is essentially all that is being used today. This criticism, however, is true for most books on clinical ultrasound because of the pace of this field's development. It was disappointing that B scanning in the eye was omitted.

In summary, this book is recommended to those wishing to obtain a quick survey of the field of clinical ultrasound.

~OEL THOMPSON Palo Alto Medical Clinic

Palo Alto, California

421

Copyright �9 1977 by Academic Press, Inc. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved. ISSN 0090-6964