Comorbid Substance Use Disorders and Life-Threatening Infections

Reviews the book, Management of medical disorders associated with drug abuse and addiction edited by Giuseppe Barbaro, Felice Nava, Giorgio Barbarini, and Alfio Lucchini (see record 2007-13440-000). The editors of this book have taken on a very daunting task in trying to cover the vast subject of certain medical disorders associated with drug abuse and addiction. Probably the harshest criticism of their work is that the book is inappropriately titled. A better title would have been "Understanding Heroin and Cocaine Addiction and the Assessment and Management of Certain Comorbid Medical Conditions." Indeed, the scope of the book deals only with heroin and cocaine addiction and primarily with HIV and hepatitis infection as comorbid conditions. The three greatest strengths of this book are the sections on neurobiology and clinical aspects of heroin and cocaine addiction, the section on epidemiology of HIV among intravenous drug addicts worldwide, and the incredibly large number of references throughout the entire book. Overall, this book provides a brief summary of comorbid HIV and hepatitis infection in patients who use cocaine and heroin. It offers an excellent global view of HIV infection as well as the methods of transmission in other countries. Furthermore, it provides the reader with an excellent source of hundreds of references regarding all aspects of substance use, from the neurobiology to the clinical presentations to detoxification to comorbid hepatitis and HIV infections. The authors should be applauded for their travail. As mentioned earlier, this was a truly daunting task, and the resultant work shows a great deal of effort. The content of the book is very accessible. However, given that all but two of the authors are Italian and it seems as if the book was translated from Italian to English, it is not always easily readable. Nonetheless, its brevity makes it a very quick read, and it is a useful addition to the shelf of any mental health professional or infectious disease specialist wishing to expand his or her knowledge base of these comorbid conditions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)