Encephalopathy and nitrogen metabolism in liver failure. edited by E. Anthony Jones, Alfred J. Meier, and Robert A.F.M. Chamuleau. 452 pp. $193.00. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2003. ISBN 1-4020-1157-1. Web address for ordering: www.wkap.nl

Abstract

Conferences on specialized clinical topics now commonly assemble the presentations (the proceedings) into a collection of manuscripts, which are published as a book. This is one such book, and it contains all the fascinating wealth of expertise, esoteric offerings, and thematic blemishes, that one might expect from such a compilation. The conference in this case was the 11th International Symposium on Hepatic Encephalopathy and Nitrogen Metabolism that took place in Amsterdam in the late spring of 2002. The book contains 41 articles that include several excellent and succinct reviews and reports of original research. The articles are grouped into 9 sections representing the main topics of the Symposium. These include: nitrogen metabolism in relation to liver disease, assessment of overt and minimal hepatic encephalopathy, animal models of acute liver failure, neuropsychiatric dysfunction in chronic liver disease, pathophysiology of hepatic encephalopathy, astrocytes and hepatic encephalopathy, acute liver failure, treatment of hepatic encephalopathy, and artificial liver support and hypothermia in liver failure. A 10th section is devoted to a state-of-the-art lecture addressing the potential of molecular biological techniques in research on hepatic encephalopathy.