M Bernstein MS Berger (eds) 2nd Edition, 2008. Thieme Medical Publishers Inc., New York, ISBN: 978-3-13-116332-5, pp 477

Bernstein and Berger have produced a second edition of their book to tap into the burgeoning market in textbooks on neuro-oncology. This book is aimed at neurosurgeons, neurologists, oncologists, residents and fellows, and provides a contemporary in-depth ‘overview’ of the topic. The chapters are set out to provide guidance to the practicing physician, and are arranged under eight separate sections: biology, evaluation, surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, biological therapy, specific tumours and related issues. Within each chapter the authors have tried to be as topical as possible. There are sub-boxes on special considerations, controversy, pearls and pitfalls, which provide the skim (or late at night) reader a very quick overview of some of the main issues in the chapter. The figures are clear and well produced. The chapters that cover imaging (divided into anatomic, metabolic, physiological and functional) are clear and almost comprehensive. One omission is a failure to discuss progress in intraoperative ultrasound. Intraoperative MRI (and for some, frameless steretaxy) remains beyond the budgets of the vast majority of world's neurosurgical services and ultrasound provides a much cheaper real-time alternative.

New techniques and treatments are constantly being proposed in neuro-oncology, and this book goes some way in covering these with chapters on photodynamic, immune, gene and small-molecule therapies.

This book does not pretend to be a comprehensive textbook; for example, the section on pathology only covers the main tumour types with no real overview of classification, but it does provide an eminently readable, up-to-date source of information for the practicing physician looking after neurological tumour patients.