Main description:

This is a highly illustrated guide for the intraoperative interpretation of central nervous system surgical specimens. The two principal techniques - smear preparations and frozen sections - are described in great detail. Introductory chapters address general approaches to specimen acquisition and preparation; specific clinical and radiological features; differential diagnosis by site; tumour and non-tumor entities with specific pathological features; and, normal cells and tissues potentially mistaken for abnormalities. The bulk of the text describes specific clinicopathological entities, in over eighty chapters. Most of the latter present bulleted summaries of clinical and radiological features, similarly formatted sections on cytological (smear preparations) and histological (frozen sections) findings, and detailed differential diagnoses. There are over fifteen hundred illustrations covering the practical aspects of real-time, real-world cytological and histological diagnoses. Designed primarily for pathologists, it will be extremely useful for neurosurgeons as well, in their formulations of a differential diagnoses.