Comprehensive Management of Swallowing Disorders, 2nd ed.

Disorders of swallowing feature in the Intercollegiate Surgical Curriculum Programme (‘ISCP’) Otolaryngology syllabus as part of the head and neck category. Although grouped into one discrete subject, the specific learning points are far more disparate.

Comprehensive Management of Swallowing Disorders by Carrau et al. proves to be a worthy compendium in understanding this topic. Now in its second edition, this paperback book comes packed with information on swallowing disorders, distilled into 550 pages.

Following a rousing foreword by Professor Peter Belafsky, the text is divided into seven parts, breaking the topic of swallowing disorders into sections such as clinical evaluation, functional testing, pathophysiology, and surgical and medical management. The final part is concerned with dysphagia in special populations, including children and the elderly.

The chapters, by and large, are well-written, in a concise manner that is easy to follow. The multidisciplinary nature of dysphagia management is made very apparent in the third part, where the perspectives and different roles that other healthcare professionals play is considered through their own specific chapters.

Chapters on ‘the normal swallow’ and functional tests in evaluation are particularly useful and well explained. Some other chapters tend to move further away from an otolaryngological perspective and may be more useful as ‘good to know’ information. Clinical photography and illustrations are presented in greyscale and would have been clearer had they been colourised.

This book will prove valuable as a reference text when studying the topic of dysphagia, especially to a higher level. It will also prove of equal worth for our colleagues in specialties such as speech and language therapy and gastroenterology.