Field of medicine: Infectious disease and immunology.

Format: Hardcover book.

Audience: Basic scientists, students, and other health care professionals involved with the care of patients with HIV infection.

Purpose: To review research findings relevant to the immunopathogenesis of HIV infection.

Content: This is a collection of review articles describing the biology of HIV infection and its effect on the human host. The articles review the interactions of HIV with constituents of the human immune system.

Highlights: This concise collection touches on the highlights of immunopathogenesis in HIV infection. Tables and helpful cartoons illustrate the text, and a few color pictures of lymphoid tissue studies are included. The chapter on simian immunodeficiency virus as a model of HIV pathogenesis helps give perspective on the subject.

Limitations: Although well referenced, some of the descriptions are so brief that a complete understanding of them would require review of the cited papers. The lack of a chapter on vaccines and their development is a glaring omission.

Context: This book updates many areas of our understanding of the immunopathogenesis of HIV infection, but it is not as comprehensive as Immunology of HIV Infection, edited by Sudhir Gupta (Plenum, 1996). It does, however, offer the advantage of conciseness and may be easier for the student who needs an introduction to understanding HIV disease.

Reviewer: Vijay V. Yeldandi, MD, Loyola University Stritch School of Mecicine, Maywood, Illinois.