Therapeutic Uses of Botulinum Toxin outlines and examines our current understanding of botulinum toxin and its various therapeutic applications. The editors explore how this novel compound fits into a wide variety of treatment algorithms across medical subspecialties. Each chapter focuses on a particular symptom and explains how botulinum toxin is currently used for treatment. The chapter authors are all leaders in their fields and are respected for their progressive approach to treatment. Physicians will benefit not only from those chapters devoted to their particular sub-specialty, but from the inspiring success resulting from the use of botulinum toxin in other patient populations. The concluding chapter examines questions of immunity, explores economic issues, and attempts to forecast future directions for this novel and somewhat mysterious drug. Clinicians across a wide variety of disciplines will refer to this comprehensive reference time and time again.

Zusammenfassung
Justinius Kerner, a German medical officer and poet, was the first to realize that botulinum toxin potentially might be useful for therapeutic purposes. Kerner made this observation in 1822, but he did not call the toxin botulinum toxin. Instead, Kerner called it the substance in wirkenden stoffes, which translates to bad sausages. Kerner realized that there was a fat poison or fatty acid within sausages that produced the toxic effects that we now know as botulism. Nearly a century would pass before the bacterium producing the toxin would be isolated and the toxin ultimately renamed botulinum toxin. As farsighted as Kerner was, it is doubtful that even he could have predicted just how much potential therapeutic punch was packed within his wirkenden stoffes. It was not until 1978, more than a century and a half after Kerner's prediction, that Dr. Allan Scott received Food and Drug Administration approval to test botulinum toxin type A in human volunteers. We do not yet have a comprehensive understanding of precisely how botulinum toxin works in the human body or how our bodies fully respond to the toxin. We do know that it temporarily paralyzes muscle by inhibiting the release of acetylcholine, and it also appears to inhibit the release of other neurotransmitters.

Inhalt
History and Mechanism of Action.- Spasticity.- Radiation Fibrosis Syndrome.- Low Back Pain.- Piriformis Syndrome.- Plantar Fasciitis.- Headache.- Spasmodic Dysphonia.- Sialorrhea and Frey's Syndrome.- Cosmetic Applications.- Hyperhydrosis.- Urological Applications.- Gastrointestinal Applications.- Blepharospasm.- Economics, Immunity, and Future Directions.