Book reviews

This book may prove popular with the surgeon in training in the midst of his FRCS examination having taken the papers before the vivas. However, I think he would probably be better off revising from his own notes or a concise revision text book. No doubt the catchy cover will ensure its sale.

D. Rosen Consultant Surgeon St . Mary’s Hospital London W 2 I N Y U K

Reoperative Vascular Surgery Trout. 155 x 235mm. Pp.363. Illustrated. 1987. New York: Marcel Dekker. $89.00.

This is an excellent book and its publication will be a welcome and timely addition to the bookshelves of vascular surgeons in Britain. The authors are practising clinicians from the Department of Surgery at the George Washington University Medical Centre. They have selected 28 contributors from other parts of the United States, and cover the whole range of reoperative vascular surgery. The first chapter on general considerations of reoperative vascular surgery is an overview of the state of the art. It produces an interesting number of statistics on the incidence of primary and reoperative vascular surgery in the United States and surveys the risk factors involved. I recommend this chapter to any surgeon in training.

The book then focuses on individual problems, covering the whole range of vascular surgery, from false aneurysms in the groin, graft infections, and reconstruction after axillofemoral bypass graft. The chapter by Ralph de Palma on reoperation for occluded aortic grafts deserves more than passing attention and there are worthwhile chapters on reoperation after femoropopliteal, femorodistal and in situ saphenous vein bypasses. Most surgeons would be tempted to skimp through the fairly lengthy treatment of reoperative surgery of the carotid artery but there is an interesting chapter on myocardial revascularization before peripheral vascular reconstruction. Other subjects dealt with include complications of dialysis access, microvascular procedures and operations on the inferior vena cava. The chapter dealing with recurrent varicose veins could have been much shorter. Probably five contributors together felt they had to cover every possible point.

The book is well produced; there are good line drawings where needed and it is full of good, practical advice for the practical vascular surgeon.

J. F. Colin Consultant Surgeon Norwich Health District U K

Principles of Surgical Technique G . G . Wind and N . M . Rich. 28Ox210mm. Pp.28Ofxi i . Illustrated. 1987. Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins. E29.25,

This is a book dedicated to those surgeons who enjoy perfecting their surgical technique and passing on their skills to others. It deals at a basic level with all the aspects of tissue handling that the senior house officer commencing his career in surgery would be expected to learn. Essentially this book is aimed at the final year medical student and houseman and does not attempt to cover a wide range of specific operations. It covers hernia repair, cholecystectomy and arteriotomy but, as it states, it is not aimed at teaching aspiring surgeons how to

perform specific operations but rather how to operate using the background of the history of the techniques of surgery and how to execute the critical fundamentals of aseptic techniques, tissue handling and haemostasis. These subjects are often overlooked.

This new second edition contains significantly expanded coverage of surgical staplers, wound healing and, surprisingly, micro-surgery: surprising because this book is aimed at relatively junior surgeons. Painstaking line diagrams are used to illustrate the minutiae of technical points, almost to the point of obsession. The two authors, from Bethesda in Maryland, betray the difference in surgical training in the United States and England. Great emphasis is paid to the way in which the junior resident would open the abdomen before the arrival of the consultant surgeon; this is not a practice that has been widely adopted in Great Britain. Nevertheless, this book is unique in that it does attempt to set down in pictorial form the principles that many junior surgeons struggle to absorb through observation and experience alone in the apprenticeship scheme of training.

It is a pleasure to recommend this book to all those who are starting out on their surgical career. It should be carefully read before embarking on an anastomosis course. However, I doubt whether the established surgeon would find much benefit from it.

J. Rennie Senior Lecturer in Surgery King’s College Hospital London U K

Recent Advances in Urology/Andrology 4 W. F . Hendry. 162 x 240mm. Pp. 336. Illustrated. 1987. Edinburgh: C hu rc hi1 I Living stone. €45 .OO .

The Recent Advances books occupy a place in between original articles and standard textbooks. The success of such books depends on the skill of the Editor in choosing firstly the subject matter and secondly authors of calibre who are experts in the fields chosen. In this book Mr Hendry has chosen wisely on both counts, for the chapters cover a wide range of subjects from radiological imaging to radical surgery and the authors are all acknowledged experts in their fields. Inevitably the chapters vary in quality and appeal but everyone will find several chapters of great interest and I enjoyed reading most of them.

Selection ofchapters on which to comment is difficult but those that particularly appealed included Michael Handley Ashken’s masterly review of the Stamey procedure for stress incontinence; John Scott’s comprehensive review of the present position of vesico-ureteric reflux (123 references-what a task!) which still leaves a large question mark over the condition; Giles Brindley’s crisp summary of pharmacologically induced erections and the excellent chapter by Professor Michael Peckham and the Editor on testicular cancer.

Many of the views expressed are of necessity controversial and much of the material can be found, with diligent searching, elsewhere. However, the book compresses much information into just over 300 easily read pages and has something for everyone practising urological surgery.

Forty-five pounds (even a tax deductable forty-five pounds) is quite a lot of money for an individual to spend on a book which inevitably will date fairly rapidly, but I would regard it as an essential buy for every hospital and departmental library.

J . C. Smith

Urological Consultant John Radcliffl. Hospital Oxford U K

502 Br. J. Surg., Vol. 75, No. 5, May 1988