BOOK REVIEW
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Basic Radiological Physics, 2nd Edition.
Kuppusamy Thayalan, Author. Jaypee
Brothers Medical Publishers Pvt Ltd, New
Delhi, India, 2017. Paperback 480 pp.
Price: $31.15. ISBN: 978-9352700486
DESCRIPTION
This book covers basic radiation phy-
sics and surveys its applications within
medicine. The first edition was pub-
lished in 2001.
PURPOSE
With this book, the author has pro-
vided a single, well-organized source
of information for radiological physics.
In addition, the legal guidelines that
regulate the medical use of radiation,
specifically in India, are presented.
This text is an important contribution
for students in that part of the world.
AUDIENCE
The author has written this book to
be primarily aimed toward students that
are training to become radiological
technologists, including students study-
ing either within a radiology and imag-
ing technology program, or within a
radiotherapy technology program. The
author is a professor and practitioner of
medical physics with a substantial
amount of experience in the field.
CONTENT/FEATURES
The book is divided into six sec-
tions comprising of 30 chapters in
5402 Med. Phys. 47 (10), October 2020
total. The text and figures are in black
and white, with four color plates at the
beginning.
The first section of the book pro-
vides an overview of the most essential
basic physics concepts that the students
will need to appreciate the radiological
sciences. Electricity and magnetism
concepts are developed and segue into
a chapter concerning transformers and
rectifiers. At that stage, I think the stu-
dent is well prepared to understand the
next three chapters which cover x-rays
and their production.
The remainder of the book covers a
wide breadth of radiological sciences.
It is divided into 4 sections: diagnostic
radiology, nuclear medicine, radiation
therapy, and radiological health and
safety.
In the diagnostic section, aspects of
basic radiography are developed first,
then followed by several specialized
chapters covering mammography, fluo-
roscopy, computed tomography, ultra-
sound, and magnetic resonance
imaging. These chapters provide
cogent and self-contained overviews of
a lot of material.
The nuclear medicine section covers
radioisotope types, generation, and
detector types, including those used for
SPECT and PET detector systems.
The radiation therapy section does
well to cover modern and specialized
technology, including IMRT, VMAT,
Gamma Knife, CyberKnife, Tomother-
apy, and SRS/SRT/SBRT. A chapter is
devoted to brachytherapy, which pro-
vides only an overview. Several topics
0094-2405/2020/47(10)/5402/1 © 2020 American Association of Physicists in Medicine 5402
are left out. For example, brachyther-
apy for prostate or breast were not
mentioned. The AAPM Task Group-43
dose calculation formalism is presented
in brevity.
The section covering radiological
health and safety will be of special
interest to the students in India. It
details specific local regulatory codes
and requirements governing the use
of radiation and radioactive materials
in India. There is an overview of
shielding considerations for radiation
facilities.
The amount of material that is cov-
ered in only 488 pages is ambitious. In
general, while the book is sound and
free of errors, it is necessarily terse. It
is unfortunate that the book provides a
very few references, a few worked
example problems within the text and
it does not provide exercises for stu-
dents to practice.
ASSESSMENT/COMPARISON
Overall this could serve as a refer-
ence text, providing key local informa-
tion to students in India. It could also
serve well as a companion/alternative
text for parallel study alongside a more
established textbook.
Reviewed by Derek Dolney, Ph.D., DABR
Derek Dolney is a Senior Clinical Physicist
with Main Line Health System in Newtown
Square, Pennsylvania. His expertise is in
all aspects of radiation therapy physics and
quality assurance of radiotherapy equip-
ment.