Bendok BR, Naidech AM, Walker MT, et al. Hemorrhagic and Ischemic Stroke: Medical, Imaging, Surgical, and Interventional Approaches. Thieme 2011, 584 pages, 542 illustrations, $199.99.
Hemorrhagic and Ischemic Stroke is a multidisciplinary, 584-page hardcover textbook which discusses the medical, radiological, surgical, and image-guided interventional aspects of this topic. It is co-edited by 2 neurosurgeons (Drs. Bendok and Batjer), a neurologist (Dr. Naidech), and a neuroradiologist (Dr. Walker). The imaging input into this text is substantial, and radiology abounds throughout the book, even in areas where imaging is not the primary topic of the section. A significant portion of the text is devoted to Radiology—Section II: Imaging Considerations. Authors include many prominent in neuroradiology so the reader is assured of up-to-date and relevant information.
One is immediately struck by the fanciful cover, apparently drawn by the artist Jennifer Pryll. It is enticing and attempts to summarize (a picture in this instance is worth many more than a thousand words) all sorts of aspects of surgery, imaging, and interventions. You gotta see it.
There are 4 major sections, each section with multiple chapters: Medical and Critical Care Considerations (6 chapters); Imaging Considerations (6 chapters); Open Surgical Approach (17 chapters); Neurointerventional Approaches (11 chapters). While all chapters should be of interest to a neuroradiologists, Chapter II commands most of our attention. Here, separate areas deal with Hemorrhagic and Ischemic Stroke relative to (1) CT, (2), MR (3) PET, (4) Ultrasound, and (5) Neuroangiography. There is a sixth chapter on Promising Developments in Stroke Imaging.
These chapters contain high quality imaging with up-to-date protocols in advanced stroke imaging. Tables abound throughout these chapters, so one gets for example a quick summary of perfusion weighted imaging parameters (CBV, CBF, etc., along with an adequate examples), MRA, the time evaluation of blood on MR, parameters for assessing carotid disease by ultrasound—again with abundant examples, guidelines for TCD, along with many more. The section ends with a short but beautiful chapter on the future of imaging in stroke by Drs. Rowley, Turski, and Strother. Besides the authors perspective on where stroke imaging/analysis is heading, we are shown new entities (or at least new to this reviewer) such as time resolved MRA using HYPR-highly constrained projection reconstruction. [“Y” fits into that acronym by the end of word highly]. We also see the result of phase contrast MRA yielding hemodynamic date.
For the neurointerventionalist there will be great interest in the chapters on Open Surgical approaches and also, obviously, in the 155-page section on neurointervention. In this latter section, the whole gamut of procedures is covered, including thrombolysis/thrombectomy, angioplasty/stenting, aneurysm coiling, management of dissections, embolization of intracranial AVMs and DAVFs, and Spinal AVMs and DAVFs. These chapters nicely complement and add to material that appears earlier in the text on open surgical perspectives of these abnormalities.
Please note that added to all of this written and illustrative material is a registration and code which allows the reader to access surgical/interventional videos of 10 different operative procedures such as AVM surgery, ECA-ICA bypass, aneurysm coiling, spinal dural fistula embolization, and more. These extra features enhance significantly the value of this textbook.
As a final note, one has to admire the many artist drawings which are so helpful to the reader’s understanding, particularly with issues related to surgery.
To this reviewer, Hemorrhagic and Ischemic Stroke is the best single publication on this topic produced to date. It is recommended in the highest terms to all neuroradiologists; in fact, it should be part of the personal library of anyone who deals with stroke (and what neuroradiologists doesn’t?).
