Georges van den Berghe – författare

Since the publication of the first edition sixteen years ago, Inborn Metabolic Diseases – Diagnosis and Treatment has become a classic textbook, indispensable for those involved in the care of children and adults with inborn errors of metabolism, including pediatricians, biochemists, die- th cians, neurologists, internists, geneticists, psychologists, nurses, and social workers. This new 4 edition has been extensively revised. An additional clinician, John Walter, has joined the three other editors, there is a new chapter on neonatal screening, including tandem MS/MS, and several new disorders have been included, for example defects involving the pentose phosphate pathway (polyol metabolism) and disorders of glucose transport. However, the focus of the book remains clinical, describing symptoms and signs at presentation, how to come to a diagnosis and methods for treatment. As with the previous edition, the book can be used in two main ways. If the diagnosis is not known the reader should first refer to Chapter 1. This chapter, which includes a number of algorithms and tables, lists the clinical findings under four main headings: the neonatal period and early infancy; acute presentation in late infancy and beyond; chronic and progressive disease; and specific organ involvement. In addition a list of important symptoms or signs can be found at the end of the chapter which then refers either to the text, a table, a figure, an algorithm, a list of disorders, or a combination of these.

Five years after its predecessor, the second edition of Inborn Metabolic Diseases: Diagnosis and Treatment is appearing in an almost completely revised form. Its main feature is an even stronger emphasis on the clinical presentation of inborn errors of metabolism. For that reason, clinical approach has not only remained the central theme of the first chapter, but also become the starting point for all chapters dealing with either a single specific disorder or a group of diseases. Particular attention has been paid to clinical presentation under acute, subacute or chronic forms, to the appearance of initially aspecific symptoms evolving into a more characteristic syn­ drome at a later age, or vice versa, to clinical heterogeneity and its relation to genetic and biochemical heterogeneity. Brief reference to other diagnostic possibilities is also given in all disease-related chapters. Description of the metabolic derangements is restricted to the main pathophysiological features which provide the rationale for diagnosis and treatment. Methods to ascertain the diagnosis and diagnostic tests are listed comprehensively. As in the first edition, treatment is discussed extensively. Details are given for dietary treatment and drug administrations in acute situations, during infections and in maintenance treatment. The impressive progress of knowledge with respect to genetic lesions in inborn errors of metabolism remains condensed to the essentials. For more detailed information, particularly with respect to pathophysiology and genetics, we highly recommend the seventh edition of The Metabolic Basis of Inherited Disease, by Charles R. Scriver et al. (McGraw-Hill, 1995).