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Book Review
John G. Webster (Ed.): Minimally Invasive Medical Technology
IOP Publishing Ltd, Bristol and Philadelphia, 2001
MINIMALLY INVASIVE MEDICAL TECHNOLOGY is one of the books in Series in Medical Physics, the official book series of the
IFMBE and the IOMP. As such, it fits perfectly into the inter- and multi-disciplinary field where physics and engineering
overlap clinical medicine. The book, edited by a world-renowned pre-eminent expert and scholar in the field of biomedical
engineering, certainly deserves attention and produces high expectations in a reader. The book contains 18 chapters with
following subjects: Chemical sensors (Chapter 1), Neuro-electric signal recording (2), Pressure sensors (3), X-Ray-based
imaging (4), Nuclear medicine (5), MRI (6), Biomagnetic and bioelectric imaging (7), Utrasound (8), Multimodal imaging (9),
General techniques and applications (10), Endoscopic surgery (11), Image-guided surgery (12), Virtual and augmented reality
in medicine (13), Minimally invasive surgical robotics (14), Ablation (15), Neuromuscular stimulation (16), Helical
tomotherapy (17), and Drug delivery (18).
Each chapter contains problems and references, while the book as a whole contains a full Index. All contributing authors
are from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, USA. All chapters, with the exception of one (17), are written by a
single author. Only one chapter (16) is written by Dr. Webster himself. So, a compendium of diagnostic and therapeutic
and surgical instruments and devices involving various technological components (electronic instrumentation, computers,
communications and telemedicine, various imaging methods, robotics, sensors) are covered aiming minimal invasiveness to
the patient.
Starting from the book title and assuming an overall view on its content, one may state that the subject addressed is
modern and relevant, and not well covered in the literature, so a book with this focus was most certainly needed. A
typical chapter contains physical explanation of the method/instrument explained at the level of block schematics,
followed by critical commentary of medical applications, and pointing to further reading. Writing style is easy and
understandable, using only minimum of mathematics (the reader, especially of an engineering and physics background being
directed to a more profound study by poiniting to relevant literature: landmark textbooks and survey articles), suitable
for a first grasp of the area. This means that the book is suitable for undergraduate level courses and to the professionals'
shelf for quick orientation. The chapter by Dr. Webster is unusually short and written in a summary-style, atypical
for the book!? There are chapters devoted to novel and innovative subjects such as virtual reality applications, robot
assisted surgery, multimodal imaging, etc. This gives the book a flavour of an up-to-date albeit not a thorough account
of the matter, leaving comprehensive and in-depth descriptions to particular textbooks (refered to at the end of
chapters: these are typically classical biomedical instrumentation books containing more in-depth studies on topics such
as: amplifiers, signal processing, electrical safety aspects, etc.). As a result, despite covering a wide range, the book
has been kept to a menageable size.
There is no doubt that the author team has assembeld a timely reference for a seemingly heterogenous field of minimally
invasive medical technology. Due to its readability and broad coverage the book may be recommended to students and
professionals in biomedical engineering and physics as well as in medicine, suited for high semester undergraduate
courses or as an introductory text for graduate courses. An engineering student will have to study deeper using additional
literature. A medical student will gain a good general view of this broad area which will keep him well informed,
but will leave room for gaining deeper knowledge in the field of his special interest.
Prof. dr. sc. Vladimir Medved
Faculty of Kinesiology, University of Zagreb, Croatia
vmedved@ffk.hr
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