Abstract
A. Carlson Merrow is a pediatric radiologist at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital (Cincinnati, OH, USA) who is well-known in the pediatric radiology field as an excellent educator. With a team of 15 contributing authors, he has updated and authored a second edition of the textbook Diagnostic Imaging: Pediatrics, which aims “not just to update the text … but also to maximize [its] teaching impact … to create a text from which anyone can learn … from the medical student to the experienced attending physician.”
As indicated by the title, this text covers a wide variety of essential topics in pediatric radiology. The book is organized into nine color-coded sections: airway, chest, cardiac, gastrointestinal, genitourinary, musculoskeletal, brain, spine, and head and neck. Each section begins with a brief overview of the general “approach to” imaging that body part, including a concise review of imaging-relevant anatomy and a framework for organizing congenital and acquired pathology. Next, the chapter delves into a series of disease-specific reviews, in outline format, subdivided into eight subsections, including key facts, terminology, imaging, differential diagnosis, pathology, clinical issues, diagnostic checklist, and selected references. Several well-selected illustrations, highlighting key imaging features, supplement and enhance the text of each diagnosis-specific review. In addition, the textbook can be viewed in both hardcopy and digital format, the latter allowing for rapid search of text and figures from a computer or mobile device.
Covering more than 400 diagnoses and utilizing more than 2500 images, the textbook provides an excellent review of a wide range of essential topics in pediatric radiology in an image-rich and easy to read format. The bulleted text is concise, and the large number of clearly-labelled illustrations, accompanied by succinct descriptions of pertinent imaging findings, make this text ideal for quickly gleaning the necessary “pearls” to make the diagnosis. Furthermore, the selected references at the end of each section guide the reader to additional resources that may provide a more extensive discussion of a particular diagnosis. Lastly, the second edition is enhanced with up-to-date revisions, including an increased focus on the genetic basis of pathology and updated disease classification systems.
There are two minor weakness of this textbook, which may be necessary trade-offs when aiming to cover a wide range of topics and to educate trainees and radiologists of varying levels of experiences. First, discussions are kept intentionally short in order to cover a large number of diagnoses and focused on high-yield facts. While this format may be ideal for fellows and experienced radiologists, it may be too brief for younger trainees or non-radiologists, who may be new to these topics. However, the well-selected references at the end of each section diminish this limitation by directing the reader to more detailed discussions. Second, arrows that immediately draw the reader’s attention to the pertinent findings may be a drawback for readers hoping to review the cases as “unknowns.” However, readers with limited experience in pediatric imaging or who are looking for a quick review of the diagnosis would certainly value these annotations as a strength. Overall, these limitations do not significantly impact the excellent quality and educational value of this textbook.
With a large number of high quality images and concise discussions, the second edition of Diagnostic Imaging: Pediatrics is a simultaneously comprehensive and succinct reference for anyone looking for a disease-specific review of pediatric radiology. In this textbook, A. Carlson Merrow has achieved his goal of “[creating] a text from which anyone can learn.” This exceptional text will surely emerge as a leader in the genre of pediatric radiology reviews.