The second edition Video Atlas of Oculofacial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery by Korn and Kikkawa provides an overview of traditional and contemporary reconstructive and cosmetic eyelid, lacrimal and orbital surgical procedures. The book includes of 1600 intraoperative illustrations, in addition to 76 interactive surgical videos, accessible online. The first edition included 43 videos.
The book is comprised of four sections: introduction, eyelid and face, lacrimal and lastly, orbit. The introduction covers evaluation, anaesthetic technique, haemostasis, incision planning, sutures, needles, suturing techniques and also briefly covers grafting. Section 2 (eyelids and face) covers an impressive range of procedures, including chalazion incision and curettage, temporal artery biopsy, blepharoplasty, epicanthoplasty, traditional ptosis, entropion, ectropion, reconstruction procedures, browlift techniques and MACS facelift and botulinum toxin injection techniques.
More contemporary procedures covered include fat transfer and hyaluronic filler to the tear troughs and periorbita. Section 3 (lacrimal) covers a range of endoscopic dacrocystorhinostomy (DCR) procedures, including conjunctivo-DCR as well as silicone stent intubation, treating canaliculitis, pigtail probes and simple punctoplasty. Section 4 (orbit) covers a wide range of procedures including orbital decompression, lateral orbitotomy, inferior orbitotomy, fracture repair, transcaruncular approach, optic nerve sheath fenestration, evisceration, enucleation, exenteration, dermis fat grafts and orbital varices.
Each chapter also provides a clear table of potential complications for each procedure with comments on how to avoid or deal with these. I asked two fellows to also read this book and they specifically pointed out this aspect as a useful feature.
The format of the book is ideal for the ophthalmic plastic trainee looking to compile an instant access source of procedures to learn from. It is particularly helpful for the junior trainee, with its wide range of more basic procedures. However, it is also of immense value to the more senior trainee preparing to expand their skills in more contemporary, advanced and even aesthetic techniques.
I enjoyed the dual nature of soft and hard copy formats. Whilst the textbook has an impressive size and quality finish, the text and images are also available online along with videos. These are easy to navigate and browse through the expertconsult.inkling.com website. As a video atlas for techniques, it is an impressive addition to the current library of available textbooks. It is very useful as a reference for specific techniques and procedures and videos are also accompanied by clear narration. Although they occasionally appear grainy and are not always high resolution, nevertheless they are still clear and very well made. This is a valuable feature that helps set this book apart from other available texts.
Its obvious competition lies in the ever-expanding source of video material available on the internet, either through youtube.com or institutional websites. However, the authors are respected thinkers in the field of ophthalmic plastic surgery with obvious skill in instructional teaching. Their approach to each procedure is therefore of value even if evaluating alternative approaches.
