Doody's Review Service

Reviewer:	Lawrence Carey, BS, PharmD (Temple University School of Pharmacy)

Description
This book is designed to be a professional reference for pharmacists and pharmacy technicians as part of their job responsibilities to prepare sterile compounds; students learning about sterile compounding can also benefit. The previous edition was published in 2017. Since the 4th edition was published, there have been many changes in the field of sterile compounding, ranging from United States Pharmacopeia (USP) changes as well as bringing into view changes as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The book is written as an easy read with many drawings, tables, and bulleted lists. These lists allow the reader to follow processes on a step-by-step basis. The book is very comprehensive. ranging from an introduction to sterile compounding to equipment and specialized products. It also covers aspects of quality management.

Purpose
The book's purpose is to put into one compendium all that is needed to know about sterile compounding practice. While the author does not specifically list objectives, it is apparent by the way the book is written that it is a niche publication focusing on the entire field of sterile compounding. It is easy to imagine someone with little experience in this area reading this text and getting a very good idea of not only the practice of compounding but also the equipment and the rules necessary to govern it. These are worthy objectives, and having this book in the hospital pharmacy and any other venue of practice that utilizes sterile compounding would be a beneficial addition to its library.

Audience
The book is written for pharmacists, pharmacy technicians, and students. Anyone working in compounding facilities, hospital IV rooms, or home infusion agencies would indeed benefit. While the authors do not list specific subgroups, I agree that any pharmacist or technician in any venue of practice would find this text immensely helpful. This book meets the needs of all those intended audiences. Moreover, the authors, contributors, and reviewers of the text are well-known in the areas of hospital pharmacy as well as in sterile compounding, and some are internationally renowned based on what they have published and contributed to the body of work within sterile compounding.

Features
The best aspects of the book are its specific breakdowns over six sections and 34 chapters about the various areas to consider, ranging from safety to equipment, and covering the technical aspects of this area of pharmacy practice. The safety part is written extremely well, given that it is written by a member of the Institute for Safe Medication Practices, which is an internationally known drug safety organization. The author also makes the point within that chapter of the risks of medication errors that can happen within sterile compounding. The writing is clear and organized throughout the almost 500 pages of text. While there are no color photos, the black-and-white pictures, graphics, and drawings serve their purpose. If I could add any suggestions, I would say to dress those up a little bit only because while this material is very important, it is on the dry side; I also think having some sort of online presence including videos or more colorful photos would help the reader.

Assessment
This book is of high quality and useful to pharmacists and technicians. There are few books about compounding in the pharmacy literature that are this comprehensive and readable. There are other books like *Trissel's™ Stability of Compounded Formulations, 6th Edition, Trissel et. Al. (American Pharmacists Association, 2018) and King® Guide to Parenteral Admixtures ®*, Catania and King (King Guide Publications, 2024) but they are more checklist-like while this text is analogous to a complete compounding program. As a general book about sterile compounding, this is an excellent start. As many changes have occurred in the last five to ten years to healthcare in general and specifically areas of sterile products, this edition is justified, coming seven years after the previous one.