The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 276 No 7391 p296
11 March 2006

Excellent asthma reference for health professionals and undergraduates

‘Best medicine: asthma’, by George Kassianos, Fan Chung, Kevin Gruffydd-Jones, Mike Thomas and David Price. Pp xx+344. Price £13.95. Oxford: CSF Medical Communications Ltd; 2005. ISBN 1 905064 94 2

This book attempts to cover evidence for the use of the main therapies in the management of asthma. It is intended for a wide audience including patients, carers and all health care professionals. The authors have addressed the scope of the potential audience by providing a scientific and evidence-based volume interspersed with sections of “patient notes”. Footnotes throughout highlight important facts. In some highly technical areas, there is a suggestion that few people, including health care professionals, will read the entire text. This applies in particular to sections dealing with the chemistry of the compounds.

Following a reader’s guide, the book starts with a disease overview and then develops into monographs on each of the main drugs used in the treatment of asthma, with the notable exception of the short acting beta agonists. The material covered includes pharmacology, clinical efficacy, evidence based medicine and pharmacoeconomics, all supplemented by suitable diagrams and illustrations. This results in an excellent reference source for health care professionals and undergraduates.

The value to the general public may be limited as I suspect most will skip to the“ patient notes”. An extensive glossary is provided and each time a term in this is used it is underlined. This can be a bit tedious when reading.

As a companion to current evidence-based guidelines this book provides an excellent summary of the literature. It will, however, need to be updated regularly as evidence and the guidelines evolve.


Anne Boyter
Lecturer in the department of pharmaceutical sciences at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow