JOURNAL OF BONE AND MINERAL RESEARCH Volume 10, Number 12, I995 Bl;ickwell Science, Inc.

Book Review

Hormonal Regulation of Bone Mineral Metabolism. Daniel D. Bikle, Andres Negro-Vilar, Eds. Endocrine Reviews Mono- graphs, Volume 4.

The material contained in this volume consists primarily of free-standing review articles that previously appeared in the Endocrine Society journal, Endocrine Reviews. Many are superb comprehensive syntheses of important areas of basic or clinical skeletal research, and each is heavily ref- erenced. Covered topics include newer aspects of vitamin D and its binding protein, effects of estrogen on bone and on calciotropic hormones, PTH-related protein, skeletal as- pects of TGF-p, anabolic effects of PTH, osteoclast and osteoblast differentiation, male osteoporosis, fluoride ther- apy, autosomal dominant osteopetrosis, and hypophos- phatasia. The papers were written by major contributors to their respective fields and passed rigorous peer review be- fore their initial publication.

As an added bonus, most papers are followed by a de- tailed addendum that brings the reader up to date. This is particularly welcome since most of these topics have expe- rienced explosive growth and many sections of the original papers are already outdated. The editors have done a fine job in selecting their material and in supervising the updat-

ing process. Publication values (number, quality, and clarity of figures, use of tables, layout of text, adequacy of refer- enccs) are excellent.

Having said the above, I do admit to harboring reserva- tions about this book. Offering neither the coherence of a singlc-authored monograph nor the completeness of a mul- tiauthored text, it would have been more appropriate to name it Selected Topics in Bone Regulation. Although chap- ters devoted to hypophosphatasia, therapeutic use of fluo- ride, and male osteoporosis are informative and well writ- ten, they go far afield of the book‘s nominal title. The target readership for this volume is not clear to me. I t should find a comfortable place on the reserve shelf for a graduate seminar in skeletal biology, but its lacunae make it lcss than an ideal textbook. Subscribers to Endocrine Reviews would probably not benefit from its purchasc. Nonetheless, this book offers a great deal of exciting science, and the intcr- ested reader who does not already possess the original papers would be well advised to “check it out.”

Robert Marcus, M.D. Stanford University

2023