Customer Reviews

Chest Radiology -- Plain Film Patterns and Differential Diagnoses

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3 star:		(1)
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This is a very good book for radiologists, residents and medical students with an interest in radiology. The chapters are organized by findings such as pleural calcifications, rather than anatomy such as the pleural space. I find this more in line with how a radiologist/resident thinks. There are "pre-tests" at the begining of each chapter, excellent tables, and post chapter "pearls" that help for comprehension. At the end of the chapters are typical radiographs that show the disease topics. The discussion in the chapters helps you narrow your differential with identification of key secondary findings. This book should be read before the oral exam at least once.

I have struggled with finding a good chest radiography book and had my hopes pinned on this one. The good is that it is well-organized and the chapters are of a manageable length. The end-of-chapter summaries are great and the charts with differential diagnoses are comprehensive yet not intimidating. The bad is that the images, particularly the radiographs, are of suboptimal quality. Not infrequently, I would struggle to even see the obvious finding in the figure. "Fine reticular opacities" look not much different from "coarse reticular opacities." While it is convenient that the book is rather small in dimension, the images are likewise small, too small. This book succeeds in explaining how to differentiate rather nonspecific findings in chest radiography (a major plus). It falls short in reproducing those findings visually. You can't do that in radiology.

This is a great book. I was expecting a dull radiology text, but this book is interactive and interesting in which Dr. Reed starts the chapter with images and questions then spends the remainder of the chapter answering them/ illustrating a point. Also, the book aims at pattern recognition and what the patterns mean rather than suggesting specific diagnosis.