Infections in Cancer Patients. Monograph Series of the European Organization for Research on Treatment of Cancer. Volume 10

that of the biochemical, physical, and molecular aspects of the field of virology. The authors suggest that a high-school level of biochemical knowledge is sufficient for using this text. Although I will not argue with this assessment, I must interject that, despite its readability, the emphasis definitely preselects the text's audience. I would highly recommend the book to such persons as molecular virologists, biochemists, microbiologists, or advanced college or first-year graduate students in any of these areas. Individuals involved with molecular genetics would also be interested. In general, this book is not for the epidemiologist, physician, nor medical student. While major hosts and diseases are cited, overall there is very little focus on medicine and differential diagnosis. This book presents an adequate coverage of the field of virology, both as a text for the aforementioned individuals and as a reference for all interested others. The chapters flow whether read in succession or as isolated entities. The authors have succeeded in writing a single text surveying the field of virology in such a manner as to provide the student with a valuable resource. The subject of this book, infection in cancer patients, is covered in several large texts on infections in the immunosuppressed and in lengthy chapters in several infectious diseases textbooks. This multi-authored monograph is a useful addition to available resources in that it is compact, inexpensive, up-to-date, and sufficiently specialized to cover an important topic well. Dr. Klastersky has brought together a number of American and European authorities to author chapters on various topics relating to infections in cancer patients. If there is a deficiency in this volume, it is that the compact size and the number of chapters (14) preclude any possibility that any of these chapters represents a complete treatment of any of the topics. Relatively complete reference lists, however, expand the usefulness of the material. Most of the chapters have up-to-date lists of from 50 to 200 relevant references. While textbooks on infections in the im-munosuppressed and chapters relating to these patients in more general infectious diseases textbooks have thorough treatment of bacterial infections and antibacterial drugs, the non-bacterial infections are not always sufficiently emphasized. In this book, there are chapters on predisposing factors to fungal and viral infections in cancer patients, animal models of opportunistic non-bacterial infections, laboratory diagnoses of fungal, parasitic, and opportunistic viral infections, cryptococcal infections , antifungal therapy, antiviral chemotherapy, herpesvirus infections, …