This is the second edition, updated in 2002, of a book first published in 1999 by a British Consultant Nephrologist and a Registered Nurse working as a Clinical Education Manager.
The book is directed mainly at patients with kidney failure and, paraphrasing Woody Allen, proposes Everything you wanted to know about dialysis and kidney transplantation and were afraid to ask. It is divided into 18 chapters which cover a very wide spectrum of knowledge, encompassing notions of renal physiology, descriptions of clinical symptomatology and biological abnormalities which develop during the course of renal insufficiency, a detailed description of haemo- and peritoneal dialysis technologies, their modes of use, and respective advantages and drawbacks for the patients. Three chapters are devoted to renal transplantation, encompassing (i) a thorough review of the donor and recipient selection process (the regulatory procedures for living donors being focused on that effective in the UK); (ii) the transplant operation itself and further short-term course; and (iii) the long-term outcome, side/adverse effects of immunosuppressive drugs, transplant rejection and other complications. Particularly well written are the chapters dealing with psychological and sexual problems experienced by dialysis/transplant patients, along with that which courageously and openly deals with the so often concealed or negated situations of death and dying in the dialysis/transplant population. The last chapter, looking into the future, is mainly UK-oriented, stressing the persistent shortfalls in the UK renal services and the ongoing wide gap between availability and demand for both dialysis and transplantation. The book is completed by a list of addresses and websites of agencies, associations, etc. (useful only for UK patients), and by an excellent glossary which should be most welcome to illiterate kidney patients and their families.
The layout of the chapters is very clear, with numerous tables and graphical illustrations. Each chapter is concluded with a summary of the Key Factors detailed in the chapter, which well demonstrate the excellent educational talent of the authors.
While this book is directed primarily at patients with renal disease, the reviewer would wish that its content be known by any general practitioner or specialist, since it covers within its 151 pages everything that a well educated person of our time should know about kidney failure and its treatments.