Antimicrobial Agents: Antibacterials and Antifungals * Andre Bryskier, Ed. * ASM Press, Washington, USA, 2005. * ISBN 1-55581-237-6. $189.95, 1456 pp.

Abstract

The fact that this book about antibacterial and antifungal agents is two and a half inches thick and comprises over 1400 pages divided into 57 chapters gives one an idea of the quantity of information it contains. Having had the opportunity to review this tome, I can reassure the potential reader that the quality of information provided is comparably high.While many of the chapters deal with particular classes of antimicrobial agents, a range of related subject areas are covered, including the history of antibacterial development, structure–activity relationships, the epidemiology of resistance, drug interactions, the continuing search for new drugs and the processes involved in drug development. The individual chapters are uniformly crammed with extensive information but the consistent use of large numbers of figures and tables which break up the text makes the chapters easy to read. All the figures (which include a vast number of chemical structures) are of high quality and the tables are also well designed, which makes the retrieval of information remarkably straightforward. This process is further aided by the judicious use of headings and subheadings. Moreover, each chapter is also supplemented with lists of relevant references which allow the interested reader to go back to source publications. In terms of interest to potential readers, it has to be said that there is something for everyone. For the practising clinical microbiologist, there is considerable information on the pharmacokinetics, metabolism, drug interactions and therapeutic indications (including occasional reference to unconventional clinical indications) of the drugs covered, often with reference to variations in these parameters in different patient groups.