Arthritis in Color: Advanced Imaging of Arthritis

One of the burgeoning topics in medicine today is the treatment and imaging of arthritis and cartilage disease. Arthritis is a leading cause of disability throughout the world, with more than 30 million people of all ages affected in the United States alone. The introduction of new aggressive drug therapies; innovative surgical techniques; and the growth of an active, aging population have clarified the need for more sensitive and precise techniques to diagnose arthropathy and assess patient response to therapy.

Arthritis in Color: Advanced Imaging in Arthritis, entitled as a colorful homage to the classic text Arthritis in Black and White by Anne Brower and Donald Flemming, is organized into 2 sections and a total of 9 chapters. The first section reviews the current clinical state of the art of arthritis imaging. Included is an initial chapter addressing the technical considerations of MR imaging of arthritis. There is also an excellent chapter on the functional anatomy and structure of the osteochondral unit and a nice review of the surgical approach to osteochondral repair. Other chapters in this section survey the clinical state of the art of MR imaging, sonography, nuclear medicine, and fluorodeoxyglucose–positron-emission tomography imaging of rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis.

The second section of the book emphasizes new experimental techniques and imaging strategies in the evaluation of arthritis. Chapters include a discussion of new MR imaging techniques for imaging of osteoarthritis and an update on biochemical and functional techniques for cartilage imaging. The final chapter is a straightforward and easily understandable discussion of molecular imaging as it pertains to the evaluation of rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis.

This 240-page book contains 220 illustrations consisting of more than 600 images, 300 of which are in color. The images are of excellent quality, clearly labeled, and succinctly captioned. References are up to date, and the authors and the handful of contributors to the book are considered authorities in the field.

Unlike its namesake, this book does not propose to review arthritis variants or their classic radiographic findings and distribution. What this book does do is review the current state of the art of arthritis imaging and provide the foundation on which the future of arthritis imaging will likely be constructed. This book will be of interest to orthopedic surgeons, rheumatologists, and any radiologist—including neuroradiologists—whose practice includes the imaging of cartilage and joints.

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