Electronic ISSN 2287-0237

VOLUME

ROSEN’S PATHOLOGY OF THE BREAST, 3RD EDITION 2009

FEBRUARY 2011 - VOL.1 | BOOK REVIEW

This book is the product of accumulated knowledge for decades. The first edition was released in 1997 and the current third edition came out in 2009. It was intended for pathologists, but surgeons, oncologists, radiologists or any physicians who have a deep interest in this subject will benefit from it.

The book contains 44 chapters dedicated to all kinds of breast lesions with special emphasis on carcinoma. Each carcinoma has a chapter of its own. The non carcinoma and minor lesions are put together as a group, such Lymphoid Neoplasms, Cutaneous Neoplasms, Sarcomas, and Metastases to the Breast. There are also chapters on Pathology of Axillary and Intramammary Lymph Nodes, and Pathologic Examination of Breast and Lymph Node Specimens, Including Sentinel Lymph Nodes.

In the chapters of tumor; benign or malignant, the text follows a consistent pattern. Starting with an introductory paragraph then Clinical Presentation, Gross Pathology, Microscopic Pathology (including immunohistochemistry and other investigations) then Treatmentand Prognosis.

The second edition had been reviewed and rated ex- cellent. The information was deep and accurate. So it is not easy to top it. The third edition is not a re-written edition. The basic fact about tumors is more or less the same. The authors added new findings and information on newer investigations and refined the content here and there to make it current and this is the important part. However, since data on newer investigations such as on- cogenes, cytogenetics and molecular genetics are new and continue to emerge regularly. The information on these aspects will definitely change over time.

Besides the text part, there are a huge number of photomicrographs in over 1200 figures. Each contains multiple photos per figure. (The total number of photos is over 3000). They are in B&W and color. The B&W photos came from the first edition and much of the color were from the second edition. Several new color pho- tos were added and replaced some old B&W photos. The quality of photos is fairly good but the consistency of color balance is lacking. This, however, is not the author’s fault. It was the publisher who did not maintain standard of good quality color printing.

The book is heavy, weighs 3.3 kg and there is no eBook format. The internet access (www.rosenbreastpa- thology.com) to text and image bank is a nice feature but only a registered user who has the password can enter the site. So it is useless for everyone else. The eBook format will be a much better approach than the internet access. Anyway I doubt there will be one because a book of this type, even though very expensive, has a limited amount of production.

I would rate this book 8.5/10 (9.5 on the text part and 7.5 on the illustration; Dr. Rosen gets 10/10 for the effort and knowledge he puts into the book and the publisher gets 7 /10 for publishing it.

 

DOI

10.31524/bkkmedj.2011.02.020

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