Customer Reviews

Intraocular Tumors: An Atlas and Text

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I now own this "text" and the previously published "atlas" on intraocular tumors by the Shields, as well as oncology books by several other authors. If you own the "atlas", I am not sure it is worthwhile to purchase this new text. Here is why.

This book is filled with great pictures of anterior segment and posterior segment tumors as well as masquerading entities. However, many of the pictures are carried over from the "Atlas of intraocular tumors." The pictures are very good though.

The format in this book is similar to the "atlas" as well where at the beginning of a section, there is a brief and somewhat cursory discussion of the topic. They do not go into the nitty-gritty details of tumor management, study results, etc. What was most frustrating was situations where the Shields would mention that there are distinguishing features between this tumor and this problem, but would not go into further detail to say what those distinguishing features are..clinically, or on FA, or on ultrasound. Also, they show photos of tumors of the same variety that were treated with different modalities and don't specify why (plaque radiotherapy vs surgical excision vs enucleating, etc..). There are many other examples where the text is lacking.

So, I think this is mainly just a new edition of their "Atlas" rather than a true textbook on intraocular tumors. The photos are great, the text is no better than what you would find in a general ophthalmology text.

Currently, the best oncology TEXT is the somewhat old now book by Devron Char, "Tumors of the Eye and Ocular Adenxa." I find the text to contain an adequare amount of detail on the diseases and their management. The "Ocular Oncology" text by Albert is pretty good, but does not have the beautiful photos other books do and sometimes gets bogged down in basic science work.