Customer Reviews

Breast Pathology: A Volume in Foundations in Diagnostic Pathology series

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This book is part of the Foundations in Diagnostic Path series. As a practicing general pathologist, I perform a great amount of breast pathology, and this book suffers from its own brevity (I have the same complaint with their GI text--the GU books seems a little more complete). YES, this book might certainly be useful for a trainee looking for an alternative to the breast chapter in Sternberg or Rosai, but it just isn't comprehensive enough for daily practice---every time I try to use this book to answer a question, I end up having to pull out the larger Rosen book anyway.

This book, belonging to the Foundations in diagnostic pathology series, is one of the good introductory text in breast pathology. There are only a handful few new textbooks on the topic, some of them are too encyclopedic (like the Rosen's monograph) and some are too brief. This book tried to make a balance between the two. After reading this books, here are my comments about this books.

Good points:

1. Comprehensive in coverage, in particular included hot topics like immunohistochemistry in breast pathology, sentinel lymph node biopsy.

2. Include discussion on different diagnoses, BRCA associated cancer and some molecular aspect of breast pathology.

3. The topic on LCIS/ALH is excellent in coverage and current understanding of the disease, in particular contrasting the difference with DCIS.

4. Summary tables for fast retrieval of information.

Points requiring improvement:

1. Although the scope of entities included is wide, the treatment of individual entities are sometimes too brief. In particular relating the subtypes of breast cancer.

2. No picture for a lot of subtypes of breast cancer, which is very disappointing.

3.The topic of microglandular adenois is not even included.

4. The treatment of papillary lesions is too brief.

On the whole, this is a good introductory text, in particular for residents sitting for membership and fellowship exams because it included some theoretical stuffs that is often missed by other textbooks. However, for a more detailed discussion on the subject matter, I think the Rosen's monograph is still better.

The volume is excellently suited for a short review of all breast pathology, perfect for residents and trainees. Many tables for review and comparisons.