Allergy and Asthma: Practical Diagnosis and Management

From The Critics

Reviewer: Janet Rimmer, MBBS, MD, FRACP(St. Vincent's Clinic)
Description: This 371-page book addresses a much broader range of topics than indicated by its title. For example, it covers such topics as hypersensitivity pneumonitis, primary immunodeficiency, and HIV infection. The 42 chapters, each about 5-10 pages in length, are authored by 47 contributors, primarily U.S. based with two exceptions.
Purpose: The book, part of a series written in a standardized format, attempts to provide a general overview of allergic diseases with an additional focus on asthma (six chapters). As noted by the author, allergic diseases are common and the book was written to aid in the teaching and diagnosis of such conditions. The book attempts to address a wide range of topics, some of which are quite controversial, and chapters include an evidence-based section. The objectives are good and the book is useful, but the title does not reflect the breadth of the contents.
Audience: According to the author, the book is aimed at all medical students, medical practitioners (primary care physicians and all medical specialists), nurses, and paramedical staff as well as any members of the public who like to "learn and keep up to date in the field of allergy." The book is at a level for those training in medicine and not at a specialist level, i.e., it provides a short, succinct overview of many topics. The author has written or cowritten six of the chapters.
Features: The book covers allergic diseases including basic mechanisms, specific diseases, and specific aspects of some diseases. For example, there is a chapter on allergic rhinitis and in addition to a chapter on the effect of rhinitis on sleep, quality of life, daytime somnolence, and fatigue. Other chapters cover additional immunological topics, such as HIV and primary immunodeficiencies. The advantage of the book is that it provides very succinct summaries of a broad range of allergy related topics. The reviews are not exhaustive and perhaps there could be a single comprehensive state of the art review reference provided for each topic. Each chapter contains an evidence-based section, a novel feature that is appropriate in this era of evidence-based medicine. This features works better in some chapters than others. In some chapters there are web-based references, but the usefulness of these may need to be verified.
Assessment: Focusing on one section of the book on the prevalence of pollens in the United States and elsewhere with a view to checking the Australian content, I felt that the information and the corresponding references were not optimal, which reinforces the view that this book provides only a general overview. Bibliographies are generally very short and presumably have been limited. Some chapters are extremely dense due to the large quantities of information that they contain, and perhaps these could have been enhanced with more illustrations. The inclusion of more controversial topics such as sick building syndrome, complementary medicine, nutrition, diet and allergic diseases, is an excellent advance over previous books as these are frequently of concern/interest to patients and sourcing such summaries can be difficult. Omissions include information on nasal polyposis. Overall, this is a good attempt at collating and summarizing a lot of information about allergy, asthma, and other topics. It is likely to be used as a reference rather than read cover to cover.