Sir William Osler is reputed to have said, Listen to the patient and he will give you the answer. Had he been alive now and practicing transplantation for lymphoma, he could have well said Read the Clinical Guide to Transplantation in Lymphoma and it will give you the answer. These reviewers are very impressed by the breadth and scope of this book edited by Drs. Bipin Savani and Mohamed Mohty, ably aided by an array of expert contributors from all over the world.
Clinical Guide to Transplantation in Lymphoma is extremely easy to read and very well written. In this era of exponential information growth this book is surprisingly current, with the latest references. It has an ambitious scope, setting out to cover all aspects of transplantation in lymphoma and managing to meet that expectation.
Chapters are laid out in logical sequence divided into 2 sections. Section 1 is particularly interesting and has chapters on the historical perspective of transplantation for lymphoma, transplant data collection and reporting, and analytical methods. The remainder of section 1 describes the general principles of transplantation in lymphomas, addressing issues such as mobilization, preparative regimens, and management of the early, late, and long-term issues arising after transplantation. Some chapters include transplantation for lymphoma in children, adults, and young adolescents; pretransplant evaluation; preparative regimens for autologous and allogeneic transplants; stem cell mobilization and stem cell source; post-transplant follow-up for autologous and allogeneic transplant, and a novel chapter, First 100 Days of the Autologous Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation Process in Lymphoma. The chapters in section 1 are broadly applicable and would prove invaluable to trainees pursuing fellowships in hematopoietic cell transplantation.
Section 2 is laid out as a chapter by chapter discussion of various lymphoma histologies and the applicability of hematopoietic cell transplantation in each. One can return to some of these chapters again and again because all common and most rare lymphoma subtypes (including HIV-associated lymphoma) are discussed in excellent detail. We found each one of these chapters to be remarkably up to date. In a field such ashematopoietic cell transplantation,where there is considerable ambiguity and few randomized studies, the authors and editors have maintained a neutral and unbiased tone,discussing the available data andguidelines exhaustively.
Very few similar textbooks focus on transplantation in a disease group. Clinical Guide to Transplantation in Lymphoma is concise enough, practical, and clinically oriented to be considered a practical manual but at the same time manages to be comprehensive. Some unique features in this book are the numerous excellent graphs and tables and the discussion of case studies and clinical guidelines (United States and European) wherever applicable. We found very few typographic errors. For future editions we recommend at least 1 chapter devoted to the emerging field of cellular immunotherapy.
The editors and the contributors need to be congratulated for an encyclopedic work that still manages to be a ready reference guide. This book will be used extensively and should be in the library of every transplanter.We hope it runs into many future editions and becomes the authoritative textbook for transplantation in lymphoma. (Yogesh Jethava, Parameswaran Hari, University of Arkansas for Medical Science, Biology of Blood and Marrow Transplantation, Nov 2015)
