N. David Charkes

Progress in Nuclear Medicine, Vol 1: Neuro-Nuclear Medicine.

This would have been a superb book except for one minor detail—the contents have nothing to do with the title. If by progress you mean the events of the past few years, you will find precious little here. What we have is a collection of review articles—some of them outstanding, even minor classics—dealing with various aspects of neurological nuclear medicine practice on an introductory level. In other words, this is really a book for the interested neophyte in the field, who wants an authoritative, brief introduction to the subject. Thus, this volume can be recommended for use by students, residents in nuclear medicine, investigators seeking review articles, hospital librarians, and the nonspecialist. The highlight of the book is a magnificent series of anatomical sections of the head in two planes, which should go far in improving the diagnostic acumen of anyone concerned with reading brain scans. This chapter, by Bell,

Progress in Atomic Medicine, vol 2.

The eight chapters in this volume cover radioimmunoassay of hormones; studies of cardiopulmonary function with the short-lived isotopes 15 O, 13 N, and 11 C, bone marrow scanning, quantitation of red cell and heme kinetics with tracers, radioisotope therapy, advances in scanning, kinetics of metabolic processes, and the physiological changes observed in astronauts. All of the articles except the two dealing with advances in scanning and metabolic kinetics discuss results in terms of clinical observations in health and disease. For this reason the volume represents a summary of recent gains in our knowledge of normal and pathologic physiology. The longest chapter (surprising, considering the limited scope of most hospital therapy programs) is on isotope therapy. The methodology is available, though, in the form of radiating microspheres, bone-seeking isotopes, and so forth. It is simply awaiting clinicians with imagination and perseverance. I am certain, for example, that phosphorus-32 therapy of disseminated