Fine needle aspiration cytology: diagnostic principles and dilemmas
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* William R Geddie

Gabrijela Kocjan, New York: Springer, 2005, $189, pp 236. ISBN 354025 639 3

Gabrijela Kocjan’s *Fine needle aspiration cytology: diagnostic principles and dilemmas* is reminiscent of the type of book (For readers of a certain vintage, and this reviewer, Papworth’s “A Primer of Medicine” will come to mind.) that used to be sought out during the interminably long weekend before taking a higher examination: a concise volume, devoid of irrelevant details, that strengthens one’s ability to deal with key issues by providing a logical framework on which to hang accumulated knowledge, and freely shares clinical “pearls and pitfalls” accumulated through long experience. One rather hoped the examiners were flipping through the same book.

This monograph of 236 pages is that sort of work. Unlike the ubiquitous “Atlas and Text of Fine Needle Aspiration Cytology”, it represents in many ways an update of the type of apologia of clinical cytology written by Lopes-Cordozo or Söderström in the early days of the specialty. The initial chapters are concerned with the “how and why” of fine needle aspiration cytology. Here, the author wisely sacrifices comprehensiveness to her central purpose of showing the enormous potential of clinical cytopathology when practiced in a certain way. (For instance, the importance of specimen handling is emphasised but exact descriptions of smear preparation are not provided.) The final three chapters deal with principles of safe practice, including the role of clinical cytology in patient management, medicolegal considerations, and the contentious issue of the relative merits of fine needle aspiration and core biopsy. The intervening chapters are about specific areas of concern in practice, such as cystic lesions, lymphoid infiltrates and small round cell tumors.

It should be apparent that I like this book very much, and it does succeed in its purpose of restating the potential and problems of clinical cytopathology in a way that provides both orientation for the neophyte and advice for the practicing pathologist. Having said that, there are occasional jarring things about it. An inexplicable number of spelling errors are present, including one on the first page! A few sub-standard photomicrographs appear to have been gleaned from other sources, and other photomicrographs seem to be a “poor fit” with the findings described in the text.

But these are minor considerations. I intend to have trainees in my institution read the first few chapters several times during their time with the cytology service, and would certainly highly recommend this book to all practicing pathologists having any involvement with cytopathology.