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Most texts of thoracic surgery suffer from an overabundance of exposition based on extensive personal experience, and lack the scholarly approach seen in that superb example of textbook writing, Schwartz's Principles of Surgery. The third edition of Diseases of the Chest is no exception. The textbook is no worse and perhaps somewhat better than other well-known thoracic surgical texts, but indepth exploration of the current literature is lacking. This deficiency is compensated for, in part, by the excellent and extensive bibliographies at the end of each chapter.
The sections on general chest disease are basically the same as those in the previous edition, although significant sections have been added. The chapters on trauma and postoperative care have been reorganized for the better. A brief but excellent section on thoracic outlet syndromes is included. The TNM staging system (T indicates tumor; N, regional lymph nodes; M, distant metastases), developed by the