Antiviral Agents and Viral Diseases of Man

This multi-authored, comprehensive text on antiviral chemotherapy is the third edition of a book which was first published in 1979 and previously revised in 1984. The areas that have received the greatest revision in this edition, according to the editors, are the biophysics of drug development, the use of AZT for AIDS, ribavirin for respiratory syncytial virus infection, and DHPG for chemotherapy of cytomegalovirus (a drug mostly used today for patients with AIDS). The editors are all well known in this field and have been able to call on recognized authorities for each of the chapters. Given the price, length, and aims of this text, one should expect the contents to be thorough, nicely printed, and up to date. I approached it with these expectations and was not disappointed. The text is divided into 19 chapters plus a detailed index. The chapters are grouped into larger sections: basic biology and laboratory diagnosis, chapters on therapy of specific viral diseases, and prevention by immunization. The size of chapters is generally 30 to 50 pages and includes many, often exhaustive, numbers of references (generally one to 300, but the chapter on "HIV and Other Retroviruses" has 600, and the chapter on perinatal infections has over 700). Most chapters include citations through 1988. As one might expect, the most comprehensive sections deal with viruses of the herpesvirus family, HIV infection, and hepatitis, which are most important for specialists in the U.S. Chemotherapy for the more exotic virus diseases, flaviviruses, filoviruses, many gastrointestinal viruses, vaccinia, and variola, is given less space because there is little to be said about chemotherapy. Thus, as examples, the chapter on Herpes simplex has 12 pages of clinical data comparing drugs, doses, and routes, while in the section on exotic RNA viruses, under the Alphaviruses that cause frequently lethal equine encephalitis in man, the summation is "Treatment is supportive. No effective antiviral therapy is known." Most chapters are not limited to approved treatments and include experimental data as well as hypothetical treatments. This book is highly recommended for a virology student or investigator, as well as for academic infectious diseases specialists. Balanced recommendations for treatment of virtually any clinical virologic problem can be found here. In addition, the more basic chapters are useful for understanding drug development. Their use of figures is outstanding, and reproduction of black-and-white photographs of clinical conditions is excellent. In many cases, the background information on the various viral diseases is as good as that found in any infectious diseases text. For the general medical physician, or even the ID specialist in community practice, the cost of this book is difficult to justify. For those looking for drug names and doses for the common treatable viral diseases, there al e reviews in the current literature that are quite adequate. This text is for the