Ferral H, Lorenz J. RadCases: Interventional Radiology.  Thieme 2010, 224 pages, 493 illustrations, $49.95.

Interventional radiology is a difficult topic to teach and learn.  The text RadCases: Interventional Radiology is aimed at preparing radiology residents both for their clinical rotations in IR as well as their dreaded trip to Louisville.  This book contains 100 cases and access to 150 more cases online. The cases shown are a mix of what is seen commonly in practice as well as cases a resident might encounter during the ABR examination.

The discussions are brief, almost to a fault, but the bullet points make for easy reading.  The online cases are simple to access and view, all with high image quality.  It is difficult for a case book in interventional not to rely heavily on angiography; nevertheless the authors have made a good effort to include multiple CT, MR, and ultrasound images.

Compared to the recently reviewed book Vascular and Interventional Imaging, Case Review Series, the book reviewed here contains fewer cases, the images are smaller (the authors should have taken advantage of unused space on many pages to make the images larger) and the discussions are shorter.  The Case Review Series is better organized with cases organized into 3 levels of difficulty. It also  contains a list of the cases;  it  has questions for each case which makes for more active learning, and  it  also emphasizes patient management to a greater extent than  the RadCases book. Nonetheless, the advantages of this book are the straight forward bullet format and additional cases which are available online for one year.