COPE'S EARLY DIAGNOSIS OF THE ACUTE ABDOMEN

Reviews

From reviews of previous editions:

• 'This latest edition of the Cope-Silen text on the acute abdomen nicely closes out the 20th-century information base on this subject. Hopefully, the health-care providers of the 21st century will continue to profit from the important updating of this classic monograph.' -New England Journal of Medicine
• 'There is a lot of very useful information stuffed into these... pages, and very little has been left out... It succeeds because of its directness and practicality... The book is thorough, clear, concise, and has a definite point of view. It is a wonderful text for medical students and interns, especially primary care interns and residents who want a straightforward, clinically relevant resource... It would also make a useful review for practitioners who want to refresh their knowledge. This text should also be a must for emergency department physicians, and all family practice faculty who are confronted with ubiquitous questions from students and residents about patients with abdominal pain.' -The Journal of Family Practice
• 'A model of simplicity, lucidity and soundness and the language is a joy... Easy to read and full of good sense, the book is a distillation of the massive clinical experience of two master surgeons.' -Annals of Surgery
• 'Throughout its 26 concise chapters, Silen has taken great care to preserve the original prose of the early 20th century, making reading of this text enjoyable as well as instructive. This comprehensive work remains a medical classic and is recommended to medical students and residents seeking to achieve a solid foundation in the early diagnosis of acute abdominal pain... Most importantly, even the experienced clinician will be reminded of the importance of clinical acumen in assessing the acute abdomen and will be sure to find sections within this text that will influence his or her clinical practice.' -Canadian Journal of Surgery

Description

This famous text is much beloved by medical students and physicians-in-training throughout the English-speaking world, as its many editions indicate. Despite its relatively narrow focus, it is chock full of the pearls of clinical wisdom that students and practitioners treasure, and many of these lessons apply to medicine in general. The book was well characterized by a reviewer of an earlier edition for The New England Journal of Medicine: "If only one book about surgery could be made available to physicians from all specialties, it should probably be Silen's recent revision of Cope's Early Diagnosis of the Acute Abdomen. Since the book first appeared more than 30 years ago, it has remained the classic treatise on the initial approach to abdominal pain." Because acute, severe abdominal pain is still a common problem whose misdiagnosis can result in quick death, each generation of beginning physicians is faced with the urgency of learning to make a diagnosis in this high anxiety situation and they appreciate the wise, humane, precisely detailed guidance offered by Cope and Silen.

For the 21st Edition, Silen has again updated the text in a respectful but significant way. He has strengthened its emphasis on pitfalls in the interpretation of CT and ultrasound scans, on misadventures caused by over-reliance on blood tests and radiographs, and on careful history-taking to avoid the costs of inappropriate lab tests. He has also reviewed the data from a randomized clinical trial indicating that patients should receive adequate analgesia while awaiting a definitive diagnosis, a dictum that is contrary to traditional teaching.

Readership: Medical students, residents and physicians

Contents

1 The principles of diagnosis in acute abdomen disease
2 Methods of diagnosis: The history
3 Methods of diagnosis: The examination of the patient
4 Methods of diagnosis: The grouping of systems and signs
5 Laboratory and radiological tests
6 Appendicitis
7 The differential diagnosis of appendicitis
8 Perforation of a gastric or duodenal ulcer
9 Acute pancreatitus
10 Cholecystitis and other causes of acute pain in the right upper quandrant of the abdomen
11 Acute abdominal lesions arising in the left hypochondrium
12 The colics
13 Acute intestinal obstruction
14 Intussusception and other causes of obstruction
15 The early diagnosis of strangulated and obstructed hernias
16 Acute abdominal symptoms due to vascular lesions
17 Acute abdominal symptoms in women
18 Early ectopic gestation
19 Acute abdominal disease with genitourinary symptoms
20 The diagnosis of acute peritonitis
21 The early diagnosis of abdominal injuries
22 The postoperative abdomen
23 The acute abdomen in the tropics
24 Diseases that may stimulate the acute abdomen
25 Acute abdominal pain in the immunocompromised patient
26 Abdominal catastrophes when sensation is impaired