Editor: Leonard S. Lilly, MD
Publisher: Elsevier – 296 pages
Book Review by: Nano Khilnani

This is a great review guide based on the textbook Braunwald’s Heart Disease, 10th edition. It contains more than 700 review questions and answers to important topics covered in the above-named textbook to enable you pass the specialty board exams in cardiovascular medicine.

Containing 89 chapters, this book provides questions and answers to them organized around five sections:

  1. Fundamentals of Cardiovascular Disease: Genetics and Personalized Medicine; Evaluation of the Patient (Chapters 1 to 20)
  2. Heart Failure: Arrhythmias, Sudden Death, and Syncope (Chapters 21 to 40)
  3. Preventive Cardiology; Atherosclerotic Cardiovascular Disease (Chapters 41 to 61)
  4. Diseases of the Heart, Pericardium, and Pulmonary Vascular Bed (Chapters 62 to 75)
  5. Cardiovascular Disease in Special Populations; Cardiovascular Disease and Disorders of Other Organs (Chapters 76 to 89)

To get access to the contents of this book and other information online, first redeem your PIN from the inside front cover of the book. Here’s what you do:

  1. Login or Sign Up at  www.ExpertConsult.com
  2. Scratch off the gray stickler on the inside from cover to get your PIN code
  3. Enter PIN into the Redeem a Book Code box at the above website
  4. Click Redeem
  5. Go to My Library

You can get even more valuable information from an allied website – www.ClinicalKey.com.  This search engine of Elsevier Saunders is specially designed for doctors by providing them:

  1. Comprehensive Content – the most current, evidence-based answers available for every medical and surgical specialty.
  2. Trusted Answers – content supplied by Elsevier, the world’s leading provider of health and science information.
  3. Unrivaled Speed to Answer – faster, more relevant clinical answers, so you can spend less time searching and more time caring for your patients.

The questions contained in the review book offer multiple-choice answers (typically five: ABCDE) and you have to pick the right answer. We present below a short question to give you an idea of how the questions are presented, how the correct answers are given to you and explanations justifying the correct answer.

In the first section, Fundamentals of Cardiovascular Disease…, Question 10 is posed to you as:

“Each of the following conditions is a contraindication to exercise stress testing except

  1. Symptomatic hypertropic obstructive cardiomyopathy
  2. Advanced aortic stenosis
  3. Acute myocarditis
  4. Abdominal aortic aneurysm with transverse diameter of 5.5 cm
  5. Unstable angina”

Which of the above do you think is the correct answer? It is D, abdominal aortic aneurysm with transverse diameter of 5.5 cm. And here is the reason for this answer:

“Treadmill exercise is a safe program with an associated mortality rate of less than 0.01 percent and risk of myocardial infarction (heart attack) of less than 0.04 percent. The risk of a procedure-related complication is determined by clinical characteristics of the patient being studies.” (In other words, how healthy is the patient?)

The detailed answer explains why A, B, C, and E are contraindications to exercise stress. It then explains why D is not a contraindication:

“Despite the theoretical risk of aortic rupture due to increased wall stress, treadmill exercise testing may be safely performed in patients with an abdominal aortic aneurysm. In contrast, aortic dissection is a contraindication to the stress of exercise testing.” Two reference works are then cited as substantiation that exercise testing is safe for those with an abdominal aortic aneurysm.

Among the benefits of using this book are:

  • Explore brand-new topics that complement the overhauled 10th edition of Braunwald’s Heart Disease. New questions covering the latest diagnostic and imaging techniques and modalities, recent clinical trials, and new pharmacologic therapies have been include:
  • Access key concepts from the latest practice guidelines, as well as new material on genetics and personalized medicine.
  • Take advantage of first-hand instruction from renowned medical educator Dr. Leonard S. Lilly and gain insight from expert Brigham and Women’s Hospital faculty who have contributed their valuable knowledge regarding the most important concepts in cardiovascular medicine for clinical pract9ce and individualized study.
  • Effectively prepare for board exams with streamlined answers that are set off by color-coded tabs, making it easier to navigate between questions and answers.
  • ExpertConsult eBook included with purchase. This enhanced eBook experience allows you to search all of the text, figures, and references from the book on a variety of devices.

 

Editor:

Leonard S. Lilly, MD is Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Chief of Brigham and Women’s / Faulkner Cardiology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts.

 

Contributors:

Mark P. Bonaca, MD
Akshay Desai, MD
Neal K. Lakdawala, MD
Bradley A. Maron, MD
Amy Miller, MD, PhD
Fidencio Saldana, MD
Victor Soukolis, MD, PhD
Garrick Stewart, MD
Neil Wimmer, MD