Book Review

Allergy

N Engl J Med 1997; 337:1933-1934December 25, 1997

Article

Allergy
Second edition. Edited by Allen P. Kaplan. 896 pp., illustrated. Philadelphia, W.B. Saunders, 1997. $120. ISBN: 0-7216-4974-2

Allergic diseases affect 20 percent of the population and are among the most frequent disorders treated by family practitioners, pediatricians, and general internists. This is the reason the editor gives for a second edition of Allergy.

The book has five sections. The first, on the immune system and inflammation, is designed for subspecialists and subspecialists in training. It describes the cells involved in the immune process, the triggers that cause them to release their contents, the mediators of tissue damage, and the cytokines, interleukins, and growth factors through which cells communicate with each other.

The next three sections represent the clinical portion of the book, or “classic allergy.” The section on the assessment of allergic diseases takes up diagnostic testing, respiratory physiology, airborne allergens, and nasal allergy and sinusitis (including upper-airway rhinoscopy and imaging techniques). This section is followed by a discussion of allergic diseases, with chapters that include important or recently discovered facts that are not in other books. The section on therapeutic approaches discusses drugs that can be used to combat allergic diseases and also immunotherapy (hyposensitization). This section will appeal to subspecialists and generalists alike. The last section of the book is devoted to immunologic diseases. It discusses primary immunodeficiency diseases, acquired diseases such as human immunodeficiency virus infection and AIDS, autoimmune diseases, mastocytosis, and the hypereosinophilic syndrome.

Very few readers of this book will read it from cover to cover. Most will read the sections that interest them, or will use the book as a reference work when dealing with an unusual patient who has signs of allergic or immunologic disease. Each chapter ends with an extensive bibliography, and several have more than 400 references.

This book will be very useful in its entirety to subspecialists and subspecialists in training. The “classic allergy” portion will be useful to pediatricians, general internists, and family physicians.

C. Warren Bierman, M.D.
University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA 98195