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The fifth edition of Nathan and Oski's Hematology of Infancy and Childhood lives up to its reputation as the bible of pediatric hematology. There simply is no other book that approaches either the breadth or the depth of content for the specialist in pediatric hematology. Pediatric hematology has been for years a focus of human genetics
and molecular medicine, in part because of the accessibility
of samples of blood and bone marrow for study. The discovery
of the amino acid substitution that causes sickle hemoglobin
established the first scientific basis for understanding the
molecular nature of a genetic disease. The promise of molecular
medicine has begun to bear fruit in the usefulness of molecular
diagnostics in pediatric hematologic disorders and in the clinical
benefits of recombinant molecules such as erythropoietin and
granulocyte colony-stimulating factor. The book is based on the
principle that critically presented scientific data establish
the foundation of clinical practice. Hence, basic and clinical
research is emphasized rather more than medical practice. Progress
in the molecular understanding of hematologic disease is presented
in depth in chapters on the red-cell membrane and enzymes, phagocytes,
the immune system, and cancer. Several of the chapters are written
to provide background information and perspective for students
and practitioners of wet-bench research who will, as stated in
the preface, "continue the great progress recorded here."
The 75-page chapter on normal hematopoiesis by Sieff, Nathan,
and Clark is a critical, analytical review written in a conversational
style. Following Nathan's editorial principle of expanding the
state-of-the-art presentation of "hot" areas of research
and contracting those topics with little recent research activity,
the hematopoiesis chapter contains a wonderful summary of the
current knowledge of hematopoietic growth factors and their receptors
and includes data from knockout mice, extensive descriptions
of pertinent transcription factors, and a large section on hematopoietic-cell
signal-transduction pathways. The authors are careful to put
this vast amount of information, much of it obtained in the past
five years, in the perspective of all that we do not yet understand.
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