Book Reviews

Atlas of Head and Neck Imaging: The Extracranial Head and Neck

Suresh K. Mukherji and Vincent Chong

New York, NY: Thieme Medical Publishers, Inc., 2004, 602 pages, $169

This is a comprehensive atlas of 215 chapters grouped into 10 sections covering the 10 important regions of the head and neck. The illustrations, which are mostly CT scans with some correlating MR images, show the various inflammatory, infectious, and neoplastic diseases and the alterations of normal anatomy. The non-CT imaging modalities described in the book are included mostly for aiding CT interpretation.

In general, each chapter begins with a concise epidemiologic description with occasional reference to simple statistics, followed by a clinical findings section that briefly describes typical symptoms. This atlas indeed contains a wealth of CT images of diseases of the head and neck outside the brain. The quality of the CT images is slightly suboptimal, with most of the bony tissues shown at a saturated bright level because the soft tissue needs to be illustrated. Some of the images are probably from older collections for which the image windows could not be adjusted. The quality of the images is generally adequate, and some are highlighted by schematic illustrations.

However, lacking is the correlation of these anatomic images with other imaging modalities and the inclusion of PET or other nuclear images. For instance, in the chapters on the thyroid (chapters 112–126), only 2 scintigrams are included and not a single radioiodine image is presented for correlation with CT images of important thyroid diseases or thyroid cancer.

Overall, this atlas might be a good companion for the head and neck surgeon or a good comprehensive reference for the head and neck CT radiologist. Practitioners in nuclear imaging may derive only the limited benefit of occasionally referring to the atlas for a better understanding of anatomy or for CT or MR images with which to compare nuclear images of the head and neck to better localize findings. Addition of PET, SPECT, and scintigraphy images to the next edition will help this atlas reach a larger audience.