CT- and MR-Guided Interventions in Radiology, third edition 

CT- and MR-Guided Interventions in Radiology is a large book of 849 pages of which I was sent the ebook for review. This is the third edition of the work and therefore one assumes it has already found favour with many radiologists. The 70 chapters are contributed largely by German radiologists, but there are a few chapters from Austria, Switzerland, Slovenia, Greece, the USA and Ireland. It is rather depressing to find nothing from UK authors – I will leave readers to decide for themselves why this may be.

As one might expect from a book of this size, virtually no stone is left unturned and, apart from the many procedure-specific chapters, there are sections on pre and post-interventional imaging, infection prevention, radiation protection, medical management, robotics and use of AI, to name just a few of the 15 chapters on related topics.

Individual chapters are laid out in a uniform manner with copious illustrations of good quality. The standard of prose is uniformly high and each chapter ends with a summary and a list of key points. Navigating through the ebook is easy, with hyperlinks to all chapters and subheadings and also to specific references. 

It is worth bearing in mind that the book deals only with CT and MRI-guided interventional radiology (IR) techniques, so this is not an all-embracing IR textbook. At first glance it seems strange to find, for example, a chapter dealing with CT-guided nephrostomy when ultrasound is normally the go-to imaging modality for this procedure. However, the case is made that, occasionally, challenging anatomy may necessitate CT guidance.

More than a quarter of the book is devoted to ablative techniques for interventional oncology and some of these are rather niche topics (eg percutaneous electrochemotherapy). Nevertheless, it is good to have a record of emerging IR techniques that may or may not withstand the test of time.

So who is this book for? Really only for IR practitioners. For a single radiologist, much of the content would not be relevant as many of the procedures are highly specialised. However, as a source of reference in an IR department, this volume would be a valuable addition to reference texts, providing details of a whole host of IR techniques that would be difficult to come by in other ways.

To purchase this title at our discounted rate email: katherine@radmagazine.com.