Abstract
Dr Franco Mongini, the Director of the Facial Pain Unit in the University of Turin, published his textbook in Italian in 1998, and this English edition has now followed. He devotes the first part of the book to the anatomy and pathophysiology of the various headache syndromes, presuming a degree of clinical experience while doing so.
This is followed by chapters on the treatment of headache, both pharmacological and non-pharmacological, and only after this does he give us clinical descriptions of different diagnoses, usually taking the form of anecdotal case vignettes that are left to stand alone, rather than used to illustrate a more general and descriptive text. He devotes, for example, eight pages to the anatomy and physiology of skeletal muscle (which few would consider essential reading in a headache clinic), and only one brief paragraph to the diagnosis of temporal arteritis, which is among the most important disorders we see. That he gives even greater emphasis still (12 full pages) to temporomandibular joint disorders, must reflect his own clinical practice in Turin, which is clearly biased towards such patients. In the chapter on biofeedback elaborate technical details are given precedence over a discussion of the results of clinical trials.
The book makes difficult consecutive reading, as the early chapters presume much clinical knowledge, and the diagnostic emphases are very different from those in a typical English-speaking migraine clinic. In contrast, the clinical and pharmacological information it contains, especially about the triptans, is too cursory for the book to be of value as a source of reference for specific clinical problems in a migraine clinic.
The original edition of this book may have had a role in reviewing the English literature for an Italian speaking audience, but I cannot see it competing with the large variety of texts in English.