Hyperbaric Surgery: Perioperative Care

Rating:
Summary: A Comprehensive Text
Review: Surgery today is rarely carried out in the hyperbaric chamber under increased atmospheric pressure, and as the subtitle suggests, it is the perioperative aspects that are the emphasis of this book. Management of the patient in intensive care carries a comprehensive chapter. Aside from carbon monoxide poisoning and the gas embolic disorders, nearly all the indications for hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) are surgical or have surgical components. This is a comprehensive text for the practicing surgeon. The senior editor is fittingly from the University of Amsterdam where the first modern non-diving uses of the chamber originated. Dr. Bakker began gaining his own surgical experience there over thirty years ago with Professor Ite Boerema, the original pioneer of hyperbaric oxygenation.
Twenty authors contributed the 18 chapters of this high quality text, which has many illustrative color plates. Sheffield et al. in a section on the physiological and pharmacological basis of HBOT lay the groundwork. Surgical infections, including osteomyelitis, gas gangrene, and necrotizing soft tissue infections each have their own chapter. Crush injury with compartment syndrome merits its own chapter, and two chapters (van Merkesteyn and Feldmeier) cover maxillofacial radionecrosis and the sequelae of genitourinary and gastrointestinal radiation. Paul Cianci has written an excellent section on the management of thermal burn. For completeness, Cramer included a chapter on gas embolism and Alessandro Marroni contributed one on decompression sickness. The problems of the non-healing wound merit two chapters (Mathieu and Strauss) and Zamboni has written of the several uses of HBOT in plastic surgery. Workman wrote the chapter on chamber design and safety. Tom Hunt and Michael Gimbel conclude with a final chapter on the metabolic basis of wound healing. All of the authors have international recognition in their respective fields. This is a perfect text to introduce HBOT to any surgeon with access to a hyperbaric chamber, as well as being a resource for the experienced practitioner.
460 pages, 1385 references.
Eric P. Kindwall, MD