Kranzler LI. The Greenberg Rapid Review: A Companion to the 7th Edition. Thieme 2011, 512 pages, 19 illustrations, $89.95.
For those neuroradiologists who are curious about what kind of questions candidates for board certification in neurosurgery might be asked, this is a book to look through. It is authored by Dr. Kranzler from the University of Chicago with Justin Kranzler as a contributing editor.
Actually, it contains many sections and questions which we as neuroradiologist should know. As this text is set up, the answers to the questions appear directly adjacent to the questions and then adjacent to each answer is a reference specific page and location on the page to the companion text book—Handbook of Neurosurgery by Dr. Greenberg from the University of South Florida. While purchase of the associated softcover 1337-page handbook is not absolutely essentially, the reality is that it is the only way to get clarification of the questions/answers. Be prepared to have a ruler with you, since the page referenced has mm number next to it—you go to the page and measure down. So to test this out I randomly chose hydranencephaly. When you answer the question correctly that hydranencephaly may be caused by an infection you are instructed to go to page 309 in the Handbook and measure 11.5 mm from the top of the page for more information. There, unfortunately you see nothing about infection—all it says is it is a post neurolation defect. There is no mention of possible intrauterine infection as a potential etiology. So since that didn’t work out well another topic/question was chosen; this time I went to a question which asked what “the most common extradural spinal tumor causing a vertebral osteolytic defect on x-ray” is, and 4 possibilities are listed, none of which were metastasis or plasmacytoma. The assumption is they want you to guess amongst the 4 listed with their answer being esinophilic granuloma. When you go to page 729 in the Handbook and measure 28 mm down, you find a brief mention of EG but no explanation or description of the relative frequency of the lesions listed in the question.
This “Rapid Review” might help some neurosurgical residents in their studying but would be of faint interest to neuroradiologists.
