Comprehensive Clinical Nephrology

The second edition of Comprehensive Clinical Nephrology is just as reader-friendly as the first. It provides, in a single volume, current, authoritative, and relevant information on diseases of the kidney. Key features of the book are its very comprehensive overview of the specialty; its up-to-date information on the principles and practice of nephrology; and its clear and concise discussion of each chapter’s topic. The contributors of each chapter are diverse and come from across the globe, giving an international perspective of kidney diseases.

Like the first edition, the second edition focuses on the diagnoses and treatment of a complete list of clinical conditions in nephrology, while incorporating colorful illustrations, figures, tables, and images to facilitate understanding and summarize the evaluation and management of kidney diseases. The tables and figures, which are a strength of this textbook, include wonderful flow diagrams, treatment algorithms, and tables. They list clinical manifestations of diseases, summarize diagnostic evaluations, and include cartoons, which illustrate molecular and genetic disorders implicated in the etiology of kidney disease. I found them to be especially useful for grasping concepts of varying difficulty as well as simplifying the understanding of the pathophysiology and the treatment of kidney diseases. The first edition’s illustrations, figures, tables and radiographic images were an extremely popular feature and these images were often reproduced in lectures. The authors have improved the second edition by including additional clinical photographs, pathology photographs, and radiographs. All figures, tables, photographs, and images are included on a CD-ROM for PowerPoint (Microsoft, Redmond, WA) presentations which comes with this edition of the text.

The 17 sections of the text have 96 chapters that are well organized and have a standardized layout that allows the reader to easily locate information. Pages were numbered by chapter and by section in the first edition. Pages are now numbered in sequential order. This change results in the easier location of indexed subjects. Chapters included in the first edition have been revised and the number of referenced publications has increased to provide the reader access to more in-depth review. The chapters are not as highly referenced and lack the more comprehensive presentation of physiology, molecular biology, and basic science seen in Brenner and Rector’s The Kidney.1 This is a minor weakness because the second edition of Comprehensive Clinical Nephrology was designed to focus on a comprehensive clinical approach to kidney disease. New to this edition are chapters on “Aging and the Kidney” and “Urological Conditions of Relevance to the Nephrologist”. There is a more in depth review of drugs and the kidney, a very nice overview of poisoning and drug overdose, and detailed tables on drug dosing and prescribing in renal failure.

The chapter on cardiovascular diseases (CVD) in chronic kidney disease (CKD) summarizes the epidemiology, etiology, and pathogenesis of CVD in CKD. The book includes and gives a very succinct overview of CVD in CKD. Newer concepts such as the role of inflammation and vascular calcification on CVD risks are reviewed. Traditional and non-traditional cardiovascular risk factors such as homcysteine and Lpa are discussed in both uremic and non-uremic subjects. Also included in this chapter is a section on the effects of hemodialysis and ultrafiltration on cardiac function. This book is an excellent reference text for medicine house staff. Additionally, it is an excellent clinical resource for the nephrology fellow-in-training as well as the seasoned nephrologist in practice. This book comes highly recommended for use by internists in practice and for use as a teaching tool for physicians in academic medicine. Finally, this general text of nephrology would be an excellent book to include in the personal library of nephrologists, especially those in training.