Prostate news article, September 2004
| BOOK REVIEW
FOR 'STENTING AND THE URINARY SYSTEM'
Written by: D. Yachia and PJ Paterson. Published by Martin Dunitz, ISBN 1-84184-387-3 Reviewed by: Mr Zach Dovey, MRCP FRCS |
"Stenting and the Urinary System" is the definitive textbook for the subject. It is a second edition with new chapters to update knowledge developed since the first and is written by an international group of authors or "faculty" selected by the editors Yachia and Paterson.
At the outset there is a detailed background of the history and development of stents, a biomaterials section and a section on how different stents made of different materials are evaluated prior to their use clinically. This is followed by an excellent section on basic microbiology and stent encrustation before the textbook moves on to clinical sections on ureteric stenting, stenting in benign and malignant prostatic disease, stents in urethral strictures and in detrusor sphincter dyssynergia. There is even a section on vascular stenting in renovascular disease, haemodialysis fistulae and iliofemoral occlusions caused by urological malignancies. Finally they discuss future developments such as subcutaneous urinary diversion with extraanatomical stents, polymeric endoluminal paving, which is "tissue resurfacing" of hollow organs using injected polymers (currently mainly applied to vascular endoluminal surfaces) and site specific stents for the lower urinary tract using new stents that are crush proof, mould dynamically to differing endoluminal shapes and allow instrumentation through their lumen.
Throughout, the book is beautifully presented, the chapters are extremely detailed and well written and the text is supplemented by excellent diagrams and illustrations. Each chapter is well referenced. From the point of view of the author of this review, a junior urological trainee who is learning office urology, it would have been helpful to have a chapter devoted specifically to the use of stents in ureteric calculus disease - although I am sure all the information is there, it is covered under different headings; however this is a minor point.
Obviously this is not a book for medical students, but it will be very helpful to urological trainees, consultant urologists and subspecialists. It should probably take it's place on the shelf of every departmental library as, to quote the author's own terminology, the definitive book on "Stentology".