Reviews and Notes: Surgery: Surgical Management of Cerebrovascular Disease. RE Zierler; ed. 514 pages. New York: McGraw-Hill; 1994. $80.00. ISBN 007072792-9. Order phone 800-262-4729

This book is by 24 surgeons, 5 neurologists, 1 internist, 1 radiologist, and 1 pathologist. A more appropriate title would be Surgical Management of Extracranial Cerebrovascular Disease, because more than 450 of the well-written and illustrated pages deal with the cervical portion of the cerebral circulation. For example, the basilar artery is not indexed, the vertebral artery is given 14 lines, the vertebrobasilar system is given 24 lines, and the carotid artery is given 127 lines of indexing. Slightly more than half a page is devoted to intracranial berry aneurysms and multi-infarction dementia.

This book is a must for vascular surgeons and is divided into five parts. The first part is 76 pages in length and is devoted to anatomy and pathophysiology. The section on the mechanisms of cerebral ischemia is outstanding and brings into focus the similarities between atherosclerotic plaque disruption in the coronary circulation and the carotid arteries. The next edition of this book should include the recent observations that atherosclerosis in the …