Lung Cancer: Volume 1: Molecular Pathology Methods and Reviews

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Lung Cancer: Volume 1: Molecular Pathology Methods and Reviews
Posted on: Thursday, 10 July 2003, 06:00 CDT

Lung Cancer

Volume 1: Molecular Pathology Methods and Reviews

Volume 2: Diagnostic and Therapeutic Methods and Reviews

Edited by Barbara Driscoll, 1410 pp, with illus, Totowa, NJ, Humana Press, 2003. The 2-volume series, Lung Cancer: Volume 1: Molecular Pathology Methods and Reviews and Volume 2: Diagnostic and Therapeutic Methods and Reviews, is intended to be a detailed and up- todate summary of the molecular, diagnostic, and therapeutic advances in the field of lung cancer. The book is multiauthored, with the contributors representing a wide range of areas of expertise. General areas covered in the book include etiology and classification of lung tumors, molecular abnormalities in lung cancer, animal models for lung cancer and lung metastases, altered tumor markers in clinical samples, current treatments, and novel or experimental therapies. The target audience for the book appears to be basic research scientists engaged in the study of carcinogenesis at the molecular level, as well as academically oriented pulmonologists, pathologists, surgeons, general internists, and others who come into frequent contact with patients with lung cancer.

The research orientation of the book is evident in the organization of many of the chapters into the following sections: introduction, materials, methods, notes, and references. The second and third sections often contain detailed procedures for the research or diagnostic procedure under question, which is very specific information that would be useful to researchers in that area.

In general, I commend this book as an extremely detailed, well- referenced, and up-to-date survey of lung cancer, with particular emphasis at the molecular level. Particular strengths (and areas I found especially interesting) were the inclusion of numerous biomarker detection technologies, a survey of apoptosis and angiogenesis as they relate to carcinogenesis, and the description of advanced and/or experimental treatment modalities. The areas of interest covered in the book, in my experience, are the very ones of greatest interest to the modern-day research community, and the book has done a admirable job of capturing as accurate a "snapshot" as possible of the advances in this very rapidly moving field.

Weaknesses of the book are relatively few, but the biggest is unfortunately the one most common to heavily multiauthored texts, namely, the inclusion of duplicate and repetitious information in several of the chapters. An example of this repetitiveness is the general statements about lung cancer incidence and prognosis that are present in the first sentence or two of many of the chapters. There is also a lot of repetitious information about very general molecular biology issues, for example, the involvement of p53 and ras genes in lung cancer. Another example is the coverage of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome-associated pulmonary Kaposi sarcoma in both chapter 5 of Volume 1 and chapter 5 of Volume 2.

I also would have liked to have seen a very thorough discussion of the histopathologic classification of lung cancer, from a surgical pathology point of view, united in a single chapter and with detailed descriptions and photographs of both common and rare subtypes of lung neoplasia. (Admittedly, this critique reflects my bias as an academically trained surgical pathologist.) There is histopathologic information provided, but it is spread across chapters 2 and 4, with the former containing the more detailed information with sparse photographs. Also, from the point of view of surgical pathology, it would have been useful to have had a more thorough discussion of the immunostains useful in the diagnosis (as opposed to research) of lung cancer in the clinical surgical pathology setting and its differential diagnosis from mesothelioma. The authors do cover an important topic in the field of immunohistochemical staining with their discussion of TTF-1 (chapter 21, Volume 2).

In general, I would recommend this book to its target audience as described earlier, namely, basic molecular researchers and certain academically oriented physicians. Although the book would contain some useful information for community- or general practice-oriented pathologists, internists, and family physicians, the heavily research-oriented and subspecialized nature of much of its informational content would probably be less useful to these groups.

JOSH W MCDONALD, MD St Louis, Mo

Copyright College of American Pathologists Jul 2003