Mukherji SK, consulting ed. Parmar HA, Ibrahim M, guest eds. Congenital Anomalies of the Brain, Spine, and Neck. Elsevier; August 2011. Neuroimaging Clinics of North America; vol. 21, no. 3, pgs. 429-726, $457 for 4 issues.
The August issue of the Neuroimaging Clinics of North America is a well-crafted, 300-page description of Congenital Anomalies of the Brain, Spine, and Neck. The guest editors, Drs. Parmar and Ibrahim, have contributions from 28 other authors, and all authors have nicely taken the reader from the embryology of the area being discussed through developmental steps, and finally to the clinical and imaging presentations of each anomaly. It is good to note that the contents are not restricted to the brain, face skull base, and spine, but importantly include chapters on the neck, orbit temporal bone, and fetal imaging.
The editors chose to include 2 chapters on neurosurgery: one on the neurological management of congenital malformations of the brain, and the other directly similarly to the spine. Both are short chapters and give only a glance at how some of the anomalies are cared for from a surgical standpoint. For example, these authors present the Chiari I malformation, and in one paragraph describe some of the surgery but don’t show images of a post-surgical decompression, nor do they show the readers what one looks for in terms of postoperative complications. Diagnosing a Chiari I malformation is not difficult, however issues do arise when there are postoperative symptoms, and correlating these to the imaging becomes an important issue. Here, and throughout these two chapters, there was a missed opportunity for the neurosurgeons to deal with postoperative conditions of importance.
The above comments notwithstanding, the radiologist will benefit significantly from the material in the rest of this issue. The images are of high quality throughout the book, and the inclusion of many tables (here called boxes) serve to summarize/highlight many of the findings described in the text.
Chapters include Midline Congenital Malformations of the Brain and Skull, Development and Dysgenesis of the Cerebral Cortex, Congenital Arterial and Venous Anomalies of the Brain and Skull Base, Congenital Midface Abnormalities, Congenital Malformations of the Orbit, Congenital Malformations, Temporal Bone, Congenital Cystic Lesions of the Head and Neck, Hemangiomas and Vascular Malformations of the Head and Neck, Imaging of the Congenital Spine and Cord Malformations, Fetal Neurosurgery, and the aforementioned chapters regarding neurosurgery.
The chapters bear reading and study. Even as an introduction to the subject as a whole, one can go through the chapters, view the images and their legends, read through the highlights, absorb the drawings, and come away with a renewed appreciation of the anomalies. However, one could find fault with a small minority of unidentified labels, unlabeled structures mentioned in the legends, and some labeling is mystifying. As one example the authors describe a Rathke’s Cleft cyst and identify it with an arrow pointing to the tip of the clivus.
Although this issue contains images and discussion of the entities with which neurologists are familiar, there are anomalies shown which are seldom encountered and are worth remembering, such as a pontire cleft, tegmental cap, cortical /subcortical blurring in focal cortical dysplasia, the many manifestations of cortical dysplasia (and the excellently imaged chapter on cortical development malformations is incidentally encyclopedic in nature), microdysgenesis types, Sotos syndrome, and other associated syndromes.
A review of the less frequently encountered mid face anomalies and temporal bone anomalies make those chapters valuable, particularly since they are infrequently or rarely encountered. Review of the forms/appearance of craniostenosis (both syndromic and non syndromic) are beautifully illustrated. Many, but not all, of the orbital anomalies are even less commonly encountered, so a reading of that chapter completes the non-neck and non-spinal portions of the book.
The chapter on spine anomalies contains color drawings which make the understanding of the development and appearance of the anomalies straightforward. While many of the images in this chapter are reproduced from prior journal articles, this does not diminish the value of the descriptions. Missing from this chapter however is a discussion and illustration of the postoperative spine after definitive surgical interventional has taken place. Again, as in the comments relative to the neurosurgery chapters, these are often the most difficult to interpret.
As with the many recent issues of the Neuroimaging Clinics, Dr. Mukherji has called on gifted editors to pull together an issue which should be important to all neuroradiologists.
