Month: January 2016

Authors: Albert L. Rhoton, Jr., MD; and Yoshihiro Natori, MD Publisher:  Thieme – 311 pages Book Review by: Nano Khilnani This book addresses the increased need for clearer and more detailed understanding of the orbit region of the human head (around and behind the eyes) and its relationship to the sellar region located behind the orbit. Surgeons are faced with treating an increasing number of cases of tumors and other lesions in these areas, as well as the surrounding intracranial and subcranial regions. Near the orbit and sellar regions where better understanding of the anatomy, physiology and relationships is...

Editors: Peter O. Newton, MD; Michael F. O’Brien, MD; Harry L. Shufflebarger, MD; Randal R. Betz, MD; Robert A. Dickson, and Jurgen Harms, MD Publisher: Thieme – 433 pages Book Review by: Nano Khilnani Scoliosis (from the ancient Greek word skoliosis meaning ‘bending’) is a condition in which the spine has a three-dimensional deviation from the norm. Viewed from the back (most of the time requiring an X-ray machine) it looks shaped like an S or a C, rather than an I or a straight line. There are three main types of scoliosis: congenital (present at birth), idiopathic (cause...

Author: Richard B. Buxton Publisher: Cambridge University Press – 457 pages Book Review by: Nano Khilnani Functional magnetic resonance imaging, known in short as fMRI, is a means of mapping the brain’s activation patterns, both in health and in disease, writes the author at the beginning of this book on a relatively difficult medical specialty but which holds a lot of promise, as we mention below in the fourth paragraph. Developments in procedures and techniques in this area of medicine have been expanded rapidly, especially since the mid-1990s, contributing to our deeper understanding of brain function. Electroencephalography or EEG...

Editors: Christopher Jordan MD and Edwin Mirzabeigi, MD Publisher: Thieme – 216 pages Book Review by: Nano Khilnani This large book with 61 chapters provides the different approaches used in surgery relating to the upper and lower limbs, joints, and other parts of the human anatomy. Divided into 13 sections as listed below, each section contains a number of approaches – from just two to as many as eight- and a chapter is allocated to each approach. Providing good images is critical to the success of book on surgery. As a matter of fact, the inability to see exactly...

Editors: Daniel H. Kim, MD; Gun Choi, MD; and Sang-Ho Lee, MD Publisher: Thieme – 279 pages Book Review by: Nano Khilnani Just after eye surgery and heart surgery, spine surgery is the third most common operative area, but it is growing faster than procedures on the other two, points out Dr. Donlin M. Long in his Foreword to this book, an amply-illustrated guide to various techniques pertaining to the cervical, lumbar, and thoracic regions of the spine. He states that even when surgeries are successful, there are three negatives to consider: costs are high, the complications are frequent,...