principles and practice of renal transplantation

ANZ J. Surg.

2003;

73

: 94

BOOK REVIEW

Principles and Practice of Renal Transplantation.

By B. D.K

AHAN

and C. P

ONTICELLI

. London: Martin Dunitz Ltd, 2000.Illustrated; 834 pages. Includes index. ISBN 1853178195.

This book has been written by two leaders in the field of renaltransplantation from either side of the Atlantic, one a physician,the other a surgeon. Its aim is to provide a comprehensive workfor physicians, surgeons and medical students, although it isperhaps too detailed for the latter. It is rather unusual for a com-prehensive text in that it is not multi-authored; one or bothauthors have had a major hand in writing every chapter, with fre-quent input from members of their respective institutions.

The restricted authorship is both a strength and weakness.On the plus side the book achieves a thread of consistency withrespect to style and largely avoids the duplication and contra-diction that sometimes results from multi-authorship. On theother hand, however, the content is not as broadly balanced asit could be. For example, chapter 3 contains detailed illustrateddescriptions of splenectomy, cholecystectomy and colectomy(all arguably superfluous in a book on renal transplantation)whereas the section on laparoscopic donor nephrectomy is notillustrated and exceedingly brief, even for a procedure that wasstill relatively new at the time of publication. Some importantclinical topics, such as the role of combined kidney–pancreas

transplantation, are barely discussed. The sections on donorshortage, non-heart-beating donors, chronic allograft nephro-pathy and long-term outcome are also fairly cursory. By con-trast the chapters on the immunobiology of rejection andimmunosuppressive drugs are much more comprehensive atboth a basic science and clinical level and the chapters on post-transplant care and long-term complications are reasonably fulland thorough. The book finishes with a generic section on com-puterization and bioinformatics that I suspect may not be ofgreat interest to many readers.

Despite these criticisms the book has many strengths. It is wellillustrated, with good use of tables, the indexing is good and thetext is well referenced. Some sections of the book are detailedand authoritative. The authors have tried to strike a balancebetween presenting current evidence and reflecting on consider-able personal clinical experience. Improvements could certainlybe made to subsequent editions, but overall I think the authorshave gone a long way towards meeting their objectives.

In my opinion transplant physicians and surgeons and theirtrainees could all find something of value in this book.

J

OHN

M

C

C

ALL

Department of SurgeryAuckland HospitalAuckland, New Zealand