0278-69 15/X5 S3.00 + 0.00 Copyright &, 1985 Pergamon Press Ltd

Fd Chem. kit. Vol. 23, No. 3. pp. 401406, 1985 Prinkd in Great Britain. All rights reserved

Review Section REVIEWS OF RECENT PUBLICATIONS

Emulsions and Emulsifier Applications: Recent Developments. Edited by S. Torrey. Noyes Data Corporation, Park Ridge, NJ, 1984. pp. xii + 319. $48.00.

Despite its unappealing title, this sturdy volume should find favour amongst colloid chemists from all sorts of ‘important industries. Dairy product pro- cessors, drug manufacturers, automobile polish makers, explosives chemists, petroleum engineers and salad-dressing technologists are only a few of the people who might find it worthwhile getting their oily hands wrapped around a copy of Endsiorts ad Emdsifier Applicatims. ‘Oily’ because anyone who does not spend his working day immersed in colloidal suspensions of two or more immiscible liquids (metaphorically, of course) is liable to find the contents of this book uncomfortably viscous.

To produce this volume, information on emulsions and emulsifiers was taken from the relevant US patents issued between January 1982 and December 1983. This sounds a thoroughly unglamorous and arduous task, but the editor and publisher have nevertheless produced a presentable and informative book relatively quickly. Almost 150 patents are grouped into I1 subject areas. The two opening sections cover general emulsifier preparations (and include seven patents dealing with the microbial polysaccharides known as “cl-emulsans”, which are considered to be among the most efficient oil-in- water emulsifiers ever tested) and emulsions having multiple purposes (principally polymer and silicone emulsions). The book also includes sections on coating and adhesive emulsions, emulsions for water treatment and agricultural usage, asphalt emulsions, emulsion explosives, emulsions for use in the coal and petroleum industries, and miscellaneous emul- sions, including hydraulic fluids and cleaning and polishing emulsions.

A section on medical and pharmaceutical emul- sions includes three patents on the use of perlluoro- carbon emulsions as artificial blood, while the cosmetics section includes patents describing emulsi- fiers and emulsions for various topical creams and lotions. There are two sections on food emulsions, the first of which deals with dairy products and margarines. The second includes patents for salad- dressing emulsions (one of which is a product that does not support the growth of bacteria during storage and thus requires no preservative), powdered emulsifiers and miscellaneous preparations including a dietary beverage concentrate, a bacon analogue and microwave cake mixes.

Almost by definition, patents are bound to contain innovative ideas, although the commercial practica- bility of these ideas is by no means assured simply because a patent has been issued. Still, it’s always nice to keep an eye on the competition, and the present volume is valuable for bringing a wide range

of other companies’ ideas together within easy reach. The benign industrial ‘surveillance’ is made all the easier by the company, inventor and patent-number indexes at the back.

Precancerous Lesions of the Gastrointestinal Tract. Edited by P. Sherlock, B. C. Morson, L. Barbara 8c U. Veronesi. Raven Press, New York, 1983. pp. xiii + 330. $39.50.

Cancer of the gastro-intestinal tract is a major worldwide disease but shows a discrete geographical localization with respect to the incidence of cancer at specific sites of the tract. Gastric cancer, which is now on the decline, is largely restricted to Japan and China and to Eastern European countries. Large- bowel cancer predominantly affects the USA and Western Europe while oesophageal cancer is mainly localized in developing countries. Such discrete localization of the various cancers has inevitably led to a great deal of epidemiological research to identify environmental, dietary and genetic factors that affect the site and the incidence of neoplasia. Another area that has stimulated more recent interest and to which the present book makes a valuable contribution, is in the identification and understanding of precancerous lesions of the gastro-intestinal tract. This is of particular importance because most patients with gastro-intestinal cancer are only diagnosed at a late stage of the disease process when prognosis is poor, the earlier stages being asymptomatic.

The book is a compilation of papers presented at the International Symposium on Precancerous Lesions of the Gastrointestinal Tract held in Bologna, Italy, in October 1981. In the main it deals with cancer and precancerous changes of the oeso- phagus, stomach, small intestine and colon. It is largely restricted to observations in man, dealing with epidemiological studies, the role of environ- mental dietary and genetic factors, predisposing conditions, markers of high risk and surveillance techniques, in addition to the histogenesis and pathological features of lesions at various sites. It therefore provides a comprehensive coverage of most aspects of the subject, although inevitably the coverage of each topic is somewhat brief.

Although the subject matter is largely restricted to cancer in man, this is by no means a catalogue of clinical case histories. Many of the papers deal with mechanisms of cancer induction and progression, using epidemiological evidence and observations made in high-risk or genetically predisposed popu- lations to propose hypotheses on mechanisms of tumour induction. Some animal experimental work is reported, but because of the difficulties of produc- ing an adequate experimental model for cancer in any part of the gastro-intestinal tract, this is necessarily limited.

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