Customer Reviews

A Concise Guide to Intraoperative Monitoring

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Update, 2009:

As the review below shows, I can't recommend this book because of numerous errors, some quite serious.
It's also out of date now; doesn't treat transcranial motor evoked potentials.
There are a couple of very good books on the subject, one by Deletis and Shils and one by Marc Nuwer (2009, not his much older book). However, they're not in the same category, being not intended for beginners, and much higher priced.

Now, finally, there's a book in this category that I can recommend, "A Practical Approach to Neurophysiologic Intraoperative Monitoring" by Aatif M. Husain. It seems to be intended for beginners and for technologists, and goes into a lot of introduction to the OR at the beginning, what's a C-Arm, what's a sterile field, that kind of thing, which beginners will find useful. For the rest, it's a monograph, i.e. many authors, though Husain himself is an author on several chapters. It seems to be very solid, comprehensive, and relatively digestible. I'd recommend it as an introductory book, and also recommend having the Deletis and Nuwer books available for reference. The price is also right on this one, and apparently it comes with a PDF of the whole book on CD (I've only seen the PDF), which is very convenient. The Nuwer book has this feature also.

It's a beginning book, reasonably priced, seems to be very good, and the PDF is very handy; you can keep it on your machine and print out a page or a chapter when you need it.

Original review:

This book is full of small and large mistakes: "debulging" tumors (for "debulk"); "bare hugger" (for Bair Hugger); it states that the middle cerebral artery is part of the posterior circulation, which is a ridiculous mistake showing a very poor understanding of cerebral circulation (the posterior circulation comes from vertebral and basilar arteries; the anterior circulation is everything that comes off the carotid). The outrageously controversial claim that "dermatomal SSEP's" routinely improve during surgery is made as if it were fact, with no evidence offered. There are lots of pictures, but very few of them are of actual waveforms.

The aneurysm section is very misleading, and fails to make clear the main points: the main danger in these surgeries is ischemia during temporary clipping. Tibial nerve SSEP should be used for ACA and ACOM, median nerve for MCA, both for the PCOM.

The book has some interesting things in it, but you can't trust it. Also costs too much. I recommend instead books by Marc Nuwer; Loftus and Traynelis; Aage Moller (Evoked Potentials in Intraoperative Monitoring"; Russell and Rodichok; Clinical Neurophsyiology by Jasper R. Daube; or DeLisa et al.'s Manual of Nerve Conduction Velocity and Clinical Neurophysiology, 3rd edition. Any one of them would be much better and more useful, and especially more reliable.

The Book serves as an excellent guide to Intraoperative monitoring. The entire procedure as carried out in a real OR setting is explained vividly. It also introduces bio-electrical signals and the devices used in IOM. Well illustrated, it elicits IOM right from the basics to the advanced issues involved in the procedure. Pitfalls with apparatus usage and signal interpretation is also discussed at length. The review questions take the cake !