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Californium-252 in Teaching and Research
652
CLINICAL RADIOLOGY
BOOK REVIEWS Oinical Radiology of the Paediatric Abdomen and GastroIntestinal Tract. By R. L. Shapiro. Medical and Technical Publishing Co. Ltd, 1976, 459 pages, 650 illustrations. Price £28.25. This b o o k is constructed as an atlas o f radiographic appearances which the author has planned to interest general radiologists both in practice and in training, and also paediatricians and paediatric surgeons. Each section c o m m e n c e s with, a s u m m a r y of the principal clinical manifestations, the relevant radiological examinations, and the cardinal radiological signs; as, for example, in t h e first, section, which deals with oesophaegeal atresia and trachea-oesophageal fistula. As an atlas, this b o o k has a high standard of illustration and contains good examples o f a wide variety of conditions encountered in the 'paediatric a b d o m e n ' . The annotations to the illustrations are concise, descriptive and accurate. The division o f the book into sections on pathological entities makes each section easy to identify, b u t brings with it the problems of conditions which need to be m e n t i o n e d and illustrated in various sections, to produce a proper level of differential diagnosis. In some instances when this has been done, for example, in the section on corrosive gastritis, the reader finds a sudden transition from illustrations of this condition to frilling defects due to l y m p h o - s a r c o m a without any clear indication w h y the latter condition fits into this particular part o f the book_ In some cases, conditions that have proved to be an i m p o r t a n t differential diagnosis in the reader's experience are n o t m e n t i o n e d ; thus, the illustrations of intramural duodenal h a e m a t o m a could also be due to a post-traumatic pancreatitis with t r a u m a as a precipitating factor in b o t h conditions. The author also perpetuates the theory that the f o a m y appearance of m e c o n i u m is due to the presence of air bubbles, whereas it is difficult to reconcile this with the actual appearance o f m e c o n i u m ; the small lucent areas are, in fact, due to fat globules. There is a tendency to over-simplify the problems o f interpretation o f the inverted lateral film in ano-rectal atresia. No m e n t i o n is m a d e o f the work of Cremin in defining the so-called M4ine as a useful indication as to the level of a lesion. The other imp o r t a n t omission in this section is to c o m m e n t on the variability of the position o f the gas-filled rectal p o u c h in relation to skeletal levels so well d e m o n s t r a t e d by Berdon and Baker some 10 years ago.
The references are adequate, b u t tend to ignore work carried on outside t h e United States and certain key references such as Hans Helmet's m o n o g r a p h on intussusception However, in general, t h e subject m a t t e r is well balanced, the a u t h o r does n o t over-stress the use of radiology, for example, the diagnosis of pyloric stenosis, where the classical clinical findings do n o t require radiological confirmation. He avoids the pitfalls s o m e t i m e s associated with a technical dissertation on the rotation o f the gut during foetal life and prefers to concentrate on t h e radiological findings of realrotation and non-rotation in t h e infant! The main strength o f this book is in the excellent illustrations and as such it should find a place in the X-ray departments of children's hospitals and should be available to trainee radiologists w h e n they are passing through a period of a t t a c h m e n t to a children's X-ray department. R. K. Levick
Californium,252 in Teaching and Research. By E. J. Hall and H H Rossi. IAEA Publication. This tidy little volume admirably fills its avowed purpose of leading n e w potential users of californium-252 as a n e u t r o n source for teaching or experiments into the safe handling o f this material. The introduction of radiations and their interactions is precise and readable. The dosimetric m e t h o d s are to be c o m m e n d e d , and as they have already been widely used by m a n y authors for n e u t r o n beam dosimerry, ensure that new users are likely to be able to measure n e u t r o n doses from californium-252 with reasonable accuracy. The large sections on biological effects are apparently condensed from Professor Hall's excellent book Radiobiology for the Radiologist and the laboratory m a n u a l leads the new user very firmly by the h a n d through a full range of simple and not so simple radiobiological experiments_ This is a worthwhile source book for any radiotherapy d e p a r t m e n t contemplating the use of californium-252 source for brachytherapy, although it is n o t specifically written for that market, It certainly has the virtue o f being inexpensive and has a wealth of practical suggestions for the storing and handling of this material which will save the new user a lot of headscratching in the first instance R_ J. Berry
CLINICAL RADIOLOGY
BOOK REVIEWS Oinical Radiology of the Paediatric Abdomen and GastroIntestinal Tract. By R. L. Shapiro. Medical and Technical Publishing Co. Ltd, 1976, 459 pages, 650 illustrations. Price £28.25. This b o o k is constructed as an atlas o f radiographic appearances which the author has planned to interest general radiologists both in practice and in training, and also paediatricians and paediatric surgeons. Each section c o m m e n c e s with, a s u m m a r y of the principal clinical manifestations, the relevant radiological examinations, and the cardinal radiological signs; as, for example, in t h e first, section, which deals with oesophaegeal atresia and trachea-oesophageal fistula. As an atlas, this b o o k has a high standard of illustration and contains good examples o f a wide variety of conditions encountered in the 'paediatric a b d o m e n ' . The annotations to the illustrations are concise, descriptive and accurate. The division o f the book into sections on pathological entities makes each section easy to identify, b u t brings with it the problems of conditions which need to be m e n t i o n e d and illustrated in various sections, to produce a proper level of differential diagnosis. In some instances when this has been done, for example, in the section on corrosive gastritis, the reader finds a sudden transition from illustrations of this condition to frilling defects due to l y m p h o - s a r c o m a without any clear indication w h y the latter condition fits into this particular part o f the book_ In some cases, conditions that have proved to be an i m p o r t a n t differential diagnosis in the reader's experience are n o t m e n t i o n e d ; thus, the illustrations of intramural duodenal h a e m a t o m a could also be due to a post-traumatic pancreatitis with t r a u m a as a precipitating factor in b o t h conditions. The author also perpetuates the theory that the f o a m y appearance of m e c o n i u m is due to the presence of air bubbles, whereas it is difficult to reconcile this with the actual appearance o f m e c o n i u m ; the small lucent areas are, in fact, due to fat globules. There is a tendency to over-simplify the problems o f interpretation o f the inverted lateral film in ano-rectal atresia. No m e n t i o n is m a d e o f the work of Cremin in defining the so-called M4ine as a useful indication as to the level of a lesion. The other imp o r t a n t omission in this section is to c o m m e n t on the variability of the position o f the gas-filled rectal p o u c h in relation to skeletal levels so well d e m o n s t r a t e d by Berdon and Baker some 10 years ago.
The references are adequate, b u t tend to ignore work carried on outside t h e United States and certain key references such as Hans Helmet's m o n o g r a p h on intussusception However, in general, t h e subject m a t t e r is well balanced, the a u t h o r does n o t over-stress the use of radiology, for example, the diagnosis of pyloric stenosis, where the classical clinical findings do n o t require radiological confirmation. He avoids the pitfalls s o m e t i m e s associated with a technical dissertation on the rotation o f the gut during foetal life and prefers to concentrate on t h e radiological findings of realrotation and non-rotation in t h e infant! The main strength o f this book is in the excellent illustrations and as such it should find a place in the X-ray departments of children's hospitals and should be available to trainee radiologists w h e n they are passing through a period of a t t a c h m e n t to a children's X-ray department. R. K. Levick
Californium,252 in Teaching and Research. By E. J. Hall and H H Rossi. IAEA Publication. This tidy little volume admirably fills its avowed purpose of leading n e w potential users of californium-252 as a n e u t r o n source for teaching or experiments into the safe handling o f this material. The introduction of radiations and their interactions is precise and readable. The dosimetric m e t h o d s are to be c o m m e n d e d , and as they have already been widely used by m a n y authors for n e u t r o n beam dosimerry, ensure that new users are likely to be able to measure n e u t r o n doses from californium-252 with reasonable accuracy. The large sections on biological effects are apparently condensed from Professor Hall's excellent book Radiobiology for the Radiologist and the laboratory m a n u a l leads the new user very firmly by the h a n d through a full range of simple and not so simple radiobiological experiments_ This is a worthwhile source book for any radiotherapy d e p a r t m e n t contemplating the use of californium-252 source for brachytherapy, although it is n o t specifically written for that market, It certainly has the virtue o f being inexpensive and has a wealth of practical suggestions for the storing and handling of this material which will save the new user a lot of headscratching in the first instance R_ J. Berry