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Journal of Heredity Advance Access published online on June 20, 2008
Journal of Heredity, doi:10.1093/jhered/esn050
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© The American Genetic Association. 2008. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org.

Book Review

Oliver Quarrell: Huntington's Disease: The Facts (2nd edition)

Huntington's Disease: The Facts (2nd edition), by Oliver Quarrell. Oxford (UK) Oxford University Press, 2008. 154 pp, Paperback, $35.00. ISBN: 9780192629302. ISBN: 0192629301.

If ever you have a patient with Huntington's disease, you must recommend this book as a comprehensive guide. This small (p. 154) pocket book provides all the details that a patient or the family may wish to know about the disease and it is replete with up-to-date factual data.

Quarrell has done a magnificent job in updating the 1999 edition on a disease that is still full of mysteries. Although it is natural nowadays that family members would employ the internet for guidance, it is difficult to see how this could be so rewarding as it is would be when reading this booklet.

The book is divided into 12 chapters, each providing factual information on the nature of the disease, the emotional reactions by patient or family, the inheritance, the various forms the disease takes, the genetic details in understandable form—even for laymen, facts about the destruction of brain tissue, prenatal diagnosis etc. Moreover, a chapter discusses the current research activities that address HD, the numerous resources that are available for families with HD and their specific addresses for contact and, finally, a glossary. Aside from boxes as colored insets that discuss brief patient reactions or case histories, numerous specific charts and photographs are provided. I liked the one on the gene cytosine-adenine-guanine (CAG) duplication most of all. It details the apparent risk derived from genetic testing for the disease and it is therefore reproduced here:Formula

All in all, I strongly recommend this small book to anyone with an interest in this devastating disease.

Kurt Benirschke

University of California, San Diego La Jolla, CA 92093


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This Article
Right arrow Extract Freely available
Right arrow FREE Full Text (PDF) Freely available
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
99/5/568    most recent
esn050v1
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