The latest ENT incarnation of the ‘ABC’ series has been thoroughly revised and updated to include current definitions, concepts and treatments for a wide range of ENT disorders.

The book is marketed as ‘an essential introduction to the speciality for students, as well as providing a practical reference for GPs, GP registrars, junior doctors and nurses’.

With the recent decline in ENT undergraduate training, the book certainly does provide a much needed and excellent overview of basic ENT disease processes for the medical student. It also explains very well the basic concepts of many ENT operations (e.g. canal wall up/down for mastoid surgery); this would be particularly useful for foundation doctors, who often spend only a few months within our speciality. Some chapters have algorithms that GPs can use to identify appropriate patients needing referral to an ENT specialist.

Aesthetically, the book is very pleasing on the optic nerve – the text flows clearly and there are helpful, colour coordinated summary boxes within the chapters. The major improvements on the previous edition are the excellent clinical photographs and imaging scans, often with a labelled, schematic diagram pointing out the salient features. There are new chapters including topics such as facial pain, head and neck tumours, sleep apnoea, and epistaxis.

In some parts, the book teases the reader but then disappoints by not providing more detail; however, it is admittedly an introductory book for ENT, entitled ‘ABC…’ rather than ‘XYZ…’!

Priced at £24.99, it won't make a gaping hole in your pocket! This book is certainly an essential addition to your local departmental or hospital library, if not to your own bookshelf.