Abstract
This textbook is meant to capture the core knowledge of emergency radiology and to bring together both traumatic and non-traumatic imaging findings of the acutely-ill patient. In the foreword, it is named the companion of the American Society of Emergency Radiology (ASER) core curriculum and members of this society have written most of the contributions. The main goal of this volume is to provide the resident, fellow, or attending radiologist on-call with all information necessary to come quickly to a correct diagnosis.
The book is organized in a head-to-toe approach with five major sections: craniocerebral orbito-maxillo-facial emergencies, spinal emergencies, thoracic emergencies, abdominal emergencies, and musculoskeletal (MS) emergencies. The sections are divided into traumatic and non-traumatic emergencies and start with a short anatomical overview. All sections cover almost the entire range of imaging diagnosis in their field with many illustrative images. The language is clear, but sometimes dry, which is not unexpected for this kind of volumes.
In my opinion, the book works well as a problem-solver, but in different ways in the five sections. In the first section, pitfalls and proposals of how to distinguish neoplasm from emergency entities with similar imaging appearances are presented in an explanatory and comprehensive way. This approach is unfortunately not carried out in the other sections. However, the abundance of high quality images of a broad spectrum of emergency cases in all sections facilitates to find both common and exceptional radiological diagnoses the reader is looking for. This large number of mainly cross-sectional examples is the greatest strength of the book and makes it highly relevant to the radiologist on-call. In addition, many anatomical key points and clinical classifications of injuries, infections, and fractures are presented in clear tables and figures. The abdominal section explains in detail CT and MRI protocols and shows comprehensive photographs of surgical equivalents.
The MS section is the least convincing one with spare clinical information, especially the pelvic fracture and soft tissues chapters are short and lack updated literature. Diagnosis and treatment of pelvic bleeding is missing. However, the most essential fractures and injury pattern are well summarized and even some peculiarities of pediatric fractures are discussed. The significantly thinner MS section reflects probably the lesser relevance of these emergencies in the acute setting.
Unfortunately, obstetrical and pediatric issues are almost completely absent which makes the textbook less complete as stated in the foreword. When browsing through the different sections, one gets the impression of four isolated book parts with completely different approaches. However, each section alone as well as the two introductory chapters about radiation reduction and image management cover most of the spectrum of emergency radiology needed by the on-call radiologist and I recommend providing your radiological emergency unit with this up-to-date volume. It will increase the accuracy of imaging diagnosis and lead to more efficient planning treatment of the acutely-ill patient.