This book attempts to cover all aspects of management for oesophageal, gastric, splenic and small bowel disease. The editors have amassed an excellent portfolio of contributors who have written the 27 chapters. The page layout is double column, which makes for easy reading, and black and white lined drawings are interspersed throughout the text. This style works well and helps to make the information readily accessible, encouraging one to dip in and out of the various chapters. There are questions at the end of each of these that provide a useful ‘checking back’ function, which helps readers confirm that they have picked up the main learning points from each contribution.
What I did not enjoy about this book was the organisation. It was novel to describe the anatomy and physiology of each organ in its own chapter and then discuss the benign diseases and malignant problems again in separate chapters. However, this resulted in considerable repetition. The spleen seems to have been given excessive prominence with over 20 pages devoted to the benign conditions of this organ whereas only 10 are given over to carcinoma of the oesophagus. There are some unusual chapters such as Chapter 23: ‘High risk lesions in the oesophagus and nuclear medicine’. This goes into the most extra-ordinary detail of how radionucleotide oesophageal transit studies are performed and interpreted. Unexpectedly, there is then no discussion about high-risk lesions of the oesophagus! This chapter is followed by the only colour illustration of the book, which consists of five pictures of radionucleotide oesophageal gastric and motility studies.
I am not entirely sure who this book is aimed at but undergraduates and surgical trainees alike may find it useful to dip into for quick guidance. I think it would be most useful as a reference volume for some of its excellent chapters such as ‘Stromal upper GI tract neoplasms’ and ‘Surgical resection of oesophageal cancer: role of extended lymphadenectomy’.