Brower AC, Flemming DJ. Arthritis in Black & White. 3rd Edition. Elsevier Saunders 2012, 384 pages, $129.
The third edition of this book contains predominately plain radiographs of different arthritic conditions. From a strict neuroradiology perspective, only imaging of the spine and sacrum hold interest.
Analysis of plain films is slowly becoming a lost art, so it is of value to look through the multiple images to remind ourselves what is the appearance of these arthritic conditions.
There are 3 parts of the book:
- Techniques (very brief) on radiology, MR, Ultrasound, nuclear radiology, and CT
- Radiographic changes in specific joints (hands, hips, knees, shoulders, SI joint, spine)
- Radiographic changes in specific articular diseases (rheumatoid arthritis, gout, psoriatic arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, neuropathic arthropathy, DISH, CPPP, deposition diseases, connection tissue disorders, juvenile idiopathic arthritis, and hemophilia)
The images are reasonable in quality, but it does seem a bit unusual that examples of “phytes” of the spine had to be reproduced from a 34-year-old article. The authors do a nice job in this chapter in explaining the fundamentals for understanding the formation of the various spine findings. A few editing mistakes are noted in places in the book: for example, (Fig. 8-16) when the authors wish to say “flowing” ossification in a legend on DISH they say “following ossification,” or, when trying to compare one femoral head to another in osteonecrosis, the legend compares the left femoral head to the “left” femoral head, where they meant to say “right” femoral head. By the third edition of a text some of these mistakes should have been corrected.
Besides the chapter on “phytes” of the spine, the chapter on the SI joint is worth reviewing, since this is always part of LS spine imaging. Included are the normal anatomic considerations, a summary of the important concepts to remember relative to the cartilage thickness, and construction of the joint itself, as well as images of most all types of arthritic conditions.
Redundancies abound throughout the book. For example, for the SI joint we see the conditions described both in the anatomic section (Part I) and then in a somewhat modified fashion in Part II. While the book is dominated by plain radiographs, a number of MRs of the SI joint and the spine (for example, early LS MR changes in ankylosing spondylitis) are of interest.
In summary, this book has a place in a resident library, but for a neuroradiologist interest would be extremely limited.
