Baaj AA, Mummaneni PV, Uribe JS, Vaccaro AR, Greenberg MS, eds. Handbook of Spine Surgery. 2nd ed. Thieme; 2016; 558 pp; $99.99
The second edition of Handbook of Spine Surgery is edited by the same 5 orthopedic surgeons—who are from 4 different institutions—responsible for the first edition, which was published in 2012. This handbook is just under 100 pages longer (total of 558 pages) than the first edition and is divided into sections similar to the prior edition: Anatomy (6 chapters), Clinical Issues (11 chapters), Spine Pathology/Abnormalities (16 chapters), Surgical Techniques (39 chapters), and special short chapters on positioning, orthoses, and outcomes. Each chapter is written in a bulletpoint format, highlighting key points, concepts, specific items relative to the subject, tables (as needed), diagrams, radiology images (as warranted), a variable number of clinical questions with answers, and short reference lists.
For the radiologist, this is a good way to develop—by way of by diagrams, imaging, and descriptions—an understanding of many surgical techniques use in spine surgery. While radiologists easily recognize the imaging features of, for example, cervical laminoplasties, anterior cervical diskectomies, arthroplasties, Chiari decompressions, various osteotomies, pedicle instrumentation, and TLIFs/PLIFs, among others, few appreciate the actual steps required in achieving the end result. This handbook takes one through the major steps involved in these and many other procedures. Certainly, having some deeper understanding of what goes into each surgery makes the interpretation of the postoperative images more interesting and, potentially, more accurate.
There are other good features of this concise handbook, such as a short chapter on the essentials of spine biologics, where autographs, allographs, osteoconductives, osteoinductives, BMP, and fusion issues are outlined along with the risks/benefits of each, plus chapters on features of degenerative disease from a surgeon’s perspective; considerations given in the evaluation, workup, or potential corrections of scoliosis (various types); and radiologic considerations in spine deformities. There are, of course, other chapters, featuring spinal tumors, vascular lesions, infections, but it is not the diagnostic part that holds value to the radiologist but rather the approach (predominately surgical) to each of the spinal abnormalities.
In a practice where a large spine surgery service is present, this inexpensive handbook would be of practical usefulness.
