Cutaneous Medicine: Cutaneous Manifestations of Systemic Disease

Tom Provost and John Flynn from Johns Hopkins Medical Institution have produced an exciting new book, Cutaneous Medicine: Cutaneous Manifestations of Systemic Disease. These authors, who acknowledge help from a wide group of associates largely from the Johns Hopkins Medical Institution, have produced an elegant book with 73 chapters. The book is very manageable in size, being less than 1000 pages, and is very helpfully accompanied by a CD-ROM, which is a bonus that includes an extended bibliography from the textbook as well as a complete text and illustrations of the book in fully searchable PDF files. Dr Provost, who is the senior author of the book, is certainly one the most distinguished medical dermatologists in the United States. During his 15-year tenure as Chief of Dermatology at Johns Hopkins, he has developed a broad-based department and has been very successful in training academic dermatologists with extensive training in both dermatology and internal medicine.

Dr Provost and his associates have included physicians from other specialties, especially internal medicine, to help with this book. This strength of the book is also, in some ways, a minor deficiency. Despite efforts of the dermatology editorial team, some chapters written by nondermatologists somewhat miss the mark from the dermatologic perspective. At the same time, Dr Provost has succeeded in designing a book that in his preface he promotes as being a "highly factual readable text for dermatological and internal medicine physicians." One great strength of the book is that an outline of highlights in the margin of the text makes following the chapters much easier. The book is heavily illustrated and the quality of the photographs is generally excellent. The tables are variable in quality, but the heavy use of tables does lead to easier digestion of some of the more complicated clinical material presented. The annotated biobligraphy is helpful, although some authors have simply chosen to use 1- or 2-word summaries, such as "excellent chapter" as their annotation. The bibliography should be viewed more as a guide to suggested readings than as a comprehensive reference. Some of the references are quite dated.

The authors have included some chapters that do not always appear in textbooks on this topic, such as a chapter on basal cell and squamous cell carcinomas. The discussions of topics in the rheumology/immunology arena are particularly strong, while at the same time there may be some deficiencies in terms of coverage of some classic topics in medical dermatology, for example, the dermatologic associations of various systems dysfunctions such as renal failure and cardiopulmonary disease.

In summary, I believe that this textbook is a wonderful new edition to the literary armamentarium of the clinician who practices at the interface between internal medicine and dermatology. It has value as a book to read cover to cover as well as a reference book. There are a number of clever and helpful teaching aids used, especially the CD-ROM, the highlights in the margins of the pages, and the heavy use of color illustrations and tables. The variability in the quality of the chapters and the degree of attention afforded different topics within the area of cutaneous manifestations of systemic disease is hard to avoid in a multiauthored text. In short, Drs Provost and Flynn have attained the goals outlined in their preface. I would encourage dermatologists, as well as other learners interested in the diseases covered, to buy this book as a very useful read and as an addition to their reference collection.

Utility Index: Useful

Production Quality: Good

Primary Readership: Physicians (nondermatologists), clinical dermatologists, and dermatologists-in-training

Value for Money: Expensive but worthwhile investment