The objective of Abdominal Imaging
is to provide readers with the best of both worlds: a reference
that is both comprehensive and that incorporates
features more typically found in handbooks—short, readable
sentences, key fact boxes, summary tables, abbreviated
reference lists, listings of important review articles,
and, above all, a highly integrated knowledge base that
allows readers to rapidly access key content from any
Internet-connected computer anywhere in the world.
/.../ we assembled an international
group of over 130 expert authors who contributed
a total of 136 chapters. Each author created a chapter
based on adherence to a template. This approach allows
the reader to treat the text as a dynamic resource; instead
of reading an entire chapter to find a pertinent fact, the
reader can simply turn to the section of interest and
rapidly access needed knowledge. We are well aware that
useful Radiology texts should have many images for
review, and we have taken care to richly illustrate the
chapters with over 2,500 images of excellent quality. The
chapters have also been supplemented with illustrative
boxes titled Key Points, Classic Signs, and What the Referring
Physician Needs to Know. These boxes provide
tightly focused synopses so that a busy reader may glean
the most crucial information in the precious few minutes
that are available during a typical day at the reporting
workstation. For those who wish to deepen their knowledge
beyond the text, a list of key references and review
articles has been provided in every chapter. In this way,
we hope to facilitate self-study in the many potential areas
of reader interest. The text also comes with access to
Imaging Consult online, the searchable decision support
tool that allows the reader to rapidly retrieve useful information
and greatly facilitates the practical use of our twovolume
“handbook.”