Wollemann Mária: Biochemistry of brain tumours (Budapest, 1974)
Biochemistry of brain tumours This book gives a detailed account of the biochemical changes associated with brain tumours in comparison with normal brain metabolism. Dr.Wollemann draws parallels between the metabolism of brain tumours induced with drugs or viruses and other forms of induced tumours, such as hepatomas. She discusses the biochemical alterations which appear in tissue cultures of brain tumours and supplements the morphological findings with the results of histochemical and electronmicroscopic studies. The book falls naturally into two parts: the first part deals with the changes of normal brain constituents in brain tumours, and the second part with changes in enzyme activity. Particular attention has been devoted to the isoenzyme patterns in brain tumours, established from a sample of more than four hundred cases, comparing these with the normal human adult, infant and embryonic brain tissue and body fluids. From this study, similarities with the foetal brain could be demonstrated, but other patterns failed to show any parallel with either the adult or foetal brain tissue, suggesting a distinct pathogenesis of brain tumours. These findings may well prove important in the diagnosis of brain tumours. AKADÉMIAI KIADÓ Publishing House of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences Budapest