Reviewer: Arnold Serota, MD (Private Practice)
Description: This book examines the role of radiological techniques — past, present, and future — in the diagnosis and treatment of inflammatory disease. It reviews the physiological and molecular basis of these techniques and the history of their development and extensively discusses contrast agents and enhancement techniques.
Purpose: The book's purpose is to introduce the biology of the inflammatory process and the development of radiological techniques useful in its treatment and research. These objectives are well met as historical perspectives in research and development are often interjected, particularly in the first chapter, making this book very readable.
Audience: This book appeals to a broad audience, including clinicians, radiologists, and researchers. It enables clinicians to understand the physics of the most commonly used radiological techniques and how they are advantageously used in the treatment of inflammatory diseases. Radiologists are reminded of the biological basis for their techniques and researchers for clinical application of their benchwork. The editors have assembled a group of well-recognized clinicians and researchers.
Features: This book is volume 91 in the Springer series "Progress in Inflammation Research". While the book, as the series implies, should appeal primarily to scientists involved in research of inflammation, its preface and introductions make it appealing to a broader audience. The preface gives readers an historical roadmap to follow, as the book includes modality and research-oriented chapters. The concluding chapters are presented differently, emphasizing the newer, primarily research-oriented modalities that may one day find practical use. All chapters are extensively referenced. The initial chapter gives an historical perspective on the study of inflammation. Anecdotal asides are often used to illustrate the all-too-often serendipity of significant medical discovery. This chapter also gives a timeline of the discovery of various arms of the immune system, their role in the inflammatory response, and parallel developments in radiology. The accompanying photos and illustrations are helpful. This chapter highlights the discovery and use of ionizing radiation as a diagnostic adjunct, often resulting in Nobel Prizes for the researchers. A historical timeline nicely illustrates biomedical discovery and the acceleration of knowledge in the past two centuries. The following three chapters then examine individual radiological techniques in the clinical study of inflammation. These chapters explain the physics of nuclear imaging, including positron emission tomography (PET) and single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) techniques. They also describe classes of radiotracers, including small molecules, peptides, antibodies, colloids, nanoparticles, and radiolabeled cells and their corresponding isotopes. The third chapter describes the physiological basis of magnetic resonance imaging and how it has improved medical diagnostics, particularly in neuroradiology. The use of T1 and T2 imaging agents is also described, particularly in probing the blood-brain barrier with cell adhesion molecules (CAMs). The fourth chapter examines the use of ultrasound techniques, both clinically and experimentally. As in the other chapters, the explanation of the basic physics involved in ultrasound and various modalities is very helpful. The most intriguing section of this chapter involves recent advances in contrast enhanced ultrasound (CEU), particularly the use of microbubbles. It examines examples of utility in several specific disease states, such as rheumatoid arthritis and cardiovascular inflammation. The remaining three chapters examine the present and future use of chemiluminescence and fluorescence imaging, photoacoustic imaging, intravital microscopy, and spatial transcriptionomics, primarily as research tools. The physiologic basis for these techniques aids in understanding how these modalities may one day be clinically applied.
Assessment: This book is useful in examining parallel discoveries in immunology and radiology. Careful dissection of the inflammatory response has furthered the development of specific radiological techniques and their adjuncts, such as contrast agents. This book is not an updated edition but will need a future update as further discoveries are made.
