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European Federation of Endocrine Societies 7th Postgraduate Course in Clinical Endocrinology

This is the latest version of Volpe ́’s multiauthor monograph, which was last published as Autoimmune diseases of the endocrine systemin 1990. There is an international selection of expert authors with chapters covering a wide range of topics relevant to autoimmune endocrinopathy. The introductory chapters cover basic immunology, animal models of autoimmunity, and the genetics of human autoimmune diabetes and thyroid disease. Later chapters deal with the epidemiology, autoantigens and the clinical immunopathology of the different endocrinopathies. There are also informative short chapters on ‘Sex hormones and the immune response’ and ‘Immunotherapy and prevention of autoimmune endocrinopathies’. Overall the standard of the chapters is good, and most are written in a digestible style. Coverage of the autoantigens and animal models of type 1 diabetes are particularly detailed. The text is generally well-illustrated with figures and tables, and the index is comprehensive. I have a few reservations about the book: Firstly, the last 5 years have seen an exponential growth in knowledge about the complex genetic basis of type 1 diabetes, and this receives scant attention considering it is the single major advance in this field and is likely to fuel much further work in this area. Similarly, the recent ‘Shimojo’ model of Graves’ disease gets short shrift. Secondly, there are some surprising factual inconsistencies between chapters, for example; the type 2 autoimmune polyglandular syndrome is ‘determined by multiple genetic loci’ in chapter 15, but is ‘an autosomal dominant disorder with incomplete penetrance’ in chapter 16. It is a shame that this and a few other errors were not edited out, as these will be misleading for students or novices to the area. Finally, this is an expensive book and with a price tag of around £110, most people will prefer to borrow it from their departmental library, rather than to have their own copy. Simon H. S. Pearce