Neuropathology Review, 2nd ed.

R. Prayson, ed. Humana Press; 2007, 466 pages, $89.95.

The second edition of Richard Prayson's Neuropathology Review is yet another example of how the world of medical book publishing has changed in a relatively short period of time. The book is “written” with bullet points throughout, in a fashion similar to the spate of recent radiology texts. In addition, the volume is accompanied by a CD, which cleverly allows the reader to look at multiple quiz cases of pathology in color (whereas the text itself has the same images in gray-scale). The book has 11 chapters of text material, 1 chapter with quiz cases (300 of these, both gross and histologic), 1 chapter with the answers to the questions from the previous chapter, and 2 final chapters containing self-assessment questions and their answers. The first 11 chapters cover normal histology, vascular lesions, tumors, trauma, congenital malformations, demyelinating or dysmyelinating diseases, metabolic and toxic disorders, degenerative CNS disease, infection, skeletal muscle disease, and peripheral muscle disease.

Because this book is a review, a substantial knowledge of neuropathology is required before diving into the quiz cases. The first 11 chapters are not meant to be read in a progressive order but serve to explain the answers to the quiz cases. The book obviously works best while you are on your PC. As you pick an answer (1 of 5 choices), you can go back to the cited chapter or section for additional information as you see fit. The gross anatomic specimens would be of most interest to neuroradiologists because most of the diagnoses are obvious to those who routinely perform imaging examinations of these abnormalities. However, some other images are less so, such as the dark areas in the pons ventral to the 4th ventricle and in the dentate cerebellar nuclei, which was a bilirubin encephalopathy (kernicterus). The answers to the histologic specimens would be far less easy for a radiologist; nonetheless, there is plenty to learn by looking at the images and reading about the histopathologic features.

This is not a volume that a neuroradiologist would purchase. However, for a sectional library it would be a reasonable purchase to emphasize the pathologic correlates of what we encounter on a daily basis.

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