Each night and weekend, the busy practitioner of interventional cardiology goes home to sit in his personal library and review new additions to the literature. Spending thousands of dollars each year, he receives Circulation, J Am Coll Cardiol, Am J Cardiol, Am Heart J, Angiology, N Engl J Med, JAMA, Lancet, J Invasive Cardiol, Cathet Cardiovasc Diagn, Tex Heart Inst J, and, of course, The Wall Street Journal. After a night of silent study, with no remorse for the expense, our now-exhausted practitioner is happily abreast of all but the arcana and must return to work.
In a more likely scenario, our busy practitioner is happy to make it home at all. When he does, he eats a meal bearing little resemblance to what he's recommending to his patients and looks guiltily at a sizable stack of yellowing journals sitting on a chair in his study before trudging off to bed. When next accosted by a suited representative quoting the latest article or opinion of the growing population of cardiology's talking heads, he will seek the source data and make his own judgment. For most of us who belong behind Door Number 2, a review of the year's accomplishments is provided in The Year in Cardiology, Volume 3.
The intent of this book is to provide a brief synopsis of the various publications spread throughout the cardiology literature. There are 2 editors but some 23 contributors to a total of 15 chapters, ranging from risk stratification to invasive assessment of the vulnerable plaque. The content is divided into 3 parts: Strategy, Stenting, and New Developments. Each chapter begins with a brief introduction, setting the stage for the data to follow. Individual journal publications are then provided in abstract form with an interpretation of the findings. The illustrations are copious and of good quality. After each brief synopsis, the authors provide their commentary, usually about a paragraph in length, summarizing the importance, or lack thereof, of the data shown.
It is impossible to cover every interest of the interventional cardiologist. Topics such as renal artery or intracranial stenting and stent-graft therapy for aneurysms are not discussed. Therefore, the title of the book is not “The Year in Peripheral Interventional Cardiology.” The topics that are well covered but may be unexpected include cellular therapy and contrast nephropathy. For some reason, the near-dead topic of vascular brachytherapy is resurrected for discussion among the new developments.
Probably the major downside to a book such as this is the lack of a narrative thread. Without this, it is easy to lose interest and turn to “SportsCenter” instead. However, Drs. Banning and Di Mario have accomplished their purpose very well in providing a readable synopsis of the past year in interventional cardiology. I recommend this book to those of us who have trouble keeping abreast of the current literature. It will also be useful to the physician in training whose perspective is not yet fully developed and whose textbooks, like this one, are out of date almost at the time of publication.