A mini-course in molecular biology, genetics, modified animal research models, and gene transfer approaches is included. Cloning, gene regulation, mitochondrial inheritance, chromosome analysis, gene targeting, and knockout experiments are clearly explicated and are useful for understanding general cellular and molecular biology. These precepts are applied to descriptions of congenital heart disease, cardiomyopathies, stroke, arrhythmias, atherosclerosis, restenosis, angiogenesis, lipid disorders, diabetes mellitus, coagulopathies, and thrombolysis. Two sections cover atherosclerosis and risk factors for coronary artery disease. The information is current, and treatment sections are timely.
Conventional wisdom is challenged and at times abandoned.
The comments on abdominal aortic aneurysm, molecular approaches to arrhythmogenesis, and arterial restenosis are especially noteworthy. The color plates and the glossary are superb. The book has some overlap and inconsistency of emphasis, but the editors kept the latter to a minimum. The gray-scale figures did not reproduce as well as others. Kenneth B. Desser, MD, Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center, Phoenix, Arizona.