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Elastography: A Practical Approach

Elastography: A Practical Approach is a welcomed book in the relatively new and expanding field of elastography, a subject in shortage of good textbooks. The book’s editor and main author is Richard G. Barr, an authority on the subject with extensive clinical and scientific experience. The contribution of several highly experienced co-authors adds further expertise to this comprehensive review. This book aims to be a comprehensive review of current clinical applications of elastography. The intended audience for this book is both the beginner and experienced imaging professional (radiologists, sonographers), but may also be useful for a wide array of other healthcare professionals who wish to understand the clinical application, limitations, and advantages for ultrasound/MRI elastography. The book comes in hardback and paperback and print quality is good; the 28 21 cm format suits the contents well. The layout is excellent, with text presented in a structured and orderly fashion, as we have come to expect from the publisher. Figures and images are generally of very good quality and all are printed in color. The book consists of 13 chapters. The first two chapters present a review of the basic science of ultrasound elastography. Chapters 3–11 cover ultrasound elastography in an organ-specific manner, including the liver, breast, thyroid, prostate, lymph nodes, spleen, pancreas, kidney, salivary glands, testes, and musculoskeletal system. Chapter 12 gives a short review of the techniques and current clinical applications of MRI elastography and chapter 13 is devoted to future applications for elastography. In the first two chapters, the author succeeds in giving a comprehensive, but not exhausting, introduction into the basic science and techniques used in ultrasound elastography. Reflecting the author’s own extensive experience with elastography, the text focuses on the most practically relevant issues such as examination technique, display and interpretation of results, limitations, and artefacts. The following nine organ-specific chapters are all very good reviews of the current clinical applications of ultrasound elastography for the different organ systems. Each chapter is introduced by giving an overview of the clinical issues and different elastography techniques used for the organ at hand. Results from the most relevant literature and research are presented together with high quality images from the author’s own clinical practice. Most chapters are practically oriented and include valuable tips and tricks and sections covering interpretation of results, artifacts, and mustknow pitfalls. Multiple tables summarizing currently available disease/organ-specific cutoff values are presented, which may be highly valuable for everyday practice. Each chapter is followed by a comprehensive list of references for further reading. Comments to future editions are minor. Most of the organ-specific chapters, to some degree, repeat some of the technical background which is already excellently presented in chapters 1 and 2. Both chapters 8 and 11 somewhat separately discuss the elastography of lymph nodes. Elastography: A Practical Approach succeeds in its goal in presenting a comprehensive and practically oriented review of the current clinical applications of elastography. The field of elastography is rapidly evolving and will in the near future quite certain be an integral part of everyday ultrasound examinations. Therefore, I would highly recommend this book for all imaging professionals working with ultrasound.