In this update of the 1978 edition, Rich (emeritus, vascular surgery, Uniformed Services U. of the Health Sciences, Bethesda, MD) provides a unique historical perspective on vascular injuries and the control of hemorrhage incurred in civilians and wars up to the 20th century. Other military and civilian trauma specialists treat principles applying to vascular trauma generally and to "damage control," imaging and interventional radiology, and specific types of injuries and complication. Future directions briefly touched upon include new drugs that target earlier stages in the coagulation process and perhaps even the venous wall itself. The well-illustrated volume concludes with Dr. Rich's historic collection of vascular references. Annotation ยฉ 2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Doody Review Services
**Reviewer:**David J. Dries, MD(University of Minnesota Medical School)
**Description:**This is the second edition of a definitive textbook describing approaches to vascular problems associated with blunt and penetrating injury.
**Purpose:**A definitive overview of the problem along with developments occurring since the first edition (over 10 years ago) is provided.
**Audience:**Practitioners and surgical trainees participating in the management of injured patients will benefit from this work. Editors and authors represent major centers reporting large series of patients with vascular injury of various kinds.
**Features:**General principles for management of injury open the book, followed by recent developments in diagnostic and interventional radiology. The concluding two-thirds of the book describes approaches to specific vascular injuries including the great vessels, cervical vascular trauma, and the variety of issues posed by extremity injury. Final chapters review special problems including compartment syndromes and thromboembolic complications. Last of all, the senior editor provides a comprehensive collection of references, from primary sources, regarding vascular trauma. References in this collection are organized alphabetically by last name of the first author. Individual chapters are well written and use tables to highlight important points. Line drawings are of good quality and black-and-white photographs are used to good effect. In addition to the comprehensive reference collection at the end of the book, each chapter has a reference list of adequate length citing primary sources. References date to within three years of publication.
**Assessment:**This second edition of Vascular Trauma is long overdue. Written by leaders in the field, it is a definitive, current statement on this problem.