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Cystic fibrosis

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Partial self-nomination. This is an article we've worked on at the Medicine Collaboration of the Week, and the topic certainly merits a featured-standard article. It has been recognized as a good article. It has had a peer review which can be read here which was extremely helpful and truly improved the article as a whole. The primary change which has not been done from the peer review is cleaning up Image:CFTR.jpg because my computer crashed and I haven't been able to resurrect it yet! InvictaHOG 22:01, 6 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have trimmed the external links significantly. Links are often added with great intention to these medical articles and it's always hard to cut out what other people have felt was helpful. Luckily, one of the sites included links to most of the others! InvictaHOG 02:54, 7 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Object—needs a copy-edit. Let's look at the lead.

"Cystic fibrosis (CF) is a common hereditary genetic disorder which affects many different parts of the body, including the lungs, pancreas, gastrointestinal tract, reproductive organs, and sinuses. In early childhood, prominent symptoms include growth problems and frequent infections, especially of the lung. As the disease progresses, frequent lung infections (pneumonia) often lead to breathing problems, lung damage, prolonged courses of antibiotics, and respiratory failure requiring support by a ventilator. CF may also cause diabetes mellitus, frequent sinus infections, difficulty with digestion, and infertility."

    • Spot the redundant word in the opening sentence.
    • Do we need "prominent"?
    • "Frequent" occurs twice in 11 words. Is there a synomym? Or perhaps remove the second occurrence?
    • "treament with" might be preferable to "courses of".
    • Redundant "also" in the last sentence.
    • There's "lung" and there's "lungs"; your ordinary punters would be more comfortable with a consistent plural.

Then:

    • "in a gene called the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) gene"—why not remove "in a gene" and transfer the link to the same word later in the sentence?
    • "Cystic fibrosis does not have a cure"—clumsy.
    • Second paragraph: finishes with a long list, and I'm pleased to see that there are no "also".
    • A few commas would make the reader's task easier: e.g., "Many of these symptoms occur when bacteria which always live in the thick mucus grow out of control and cause pneumonia." Two commas here would slightly change the meaning, but I think it's what you intended.

Although much of the text is good, someone who is relatively distant from the writing needs to go through it. Tony 01:00, 7 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the thorough reading! I just gave it another good scrubbing from top to bottom, incorporating all but one of your suggestions (I vote that the prominent stays, since there are many symptoms). I would love to have further copyediting, as I'm sure you're right that I'm just too close to the writing to recognize my own systematic errors. Hopefully, though, it's improved quite a bit from your initial reading. InvictaHOG 04:22, 7 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support I'm not sure if I really should vote especially since I'm so close to this subject. Looking at it from an outsiders perspective, it is a great informative article. Much better than I could have done, but as stated before in discussions it could use a picture of an xray, and some minor copy-editing. --ImmortalGoddezz 03:17, 7 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Object (based on opening para only). The opening paragraph, while including a long list of affected body parts, fails to mention that the disease is fatal. I believe the opening paragraph of an article about disease should include information about its name, prevalence, severity, major symptoms, and not much else - the current paragraph contains two lists that appear at first reading could be shortened, but doesn't mention the disease is disabling, untreatable, and fatal. RandomP 01:02, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I've extensively rewritten the entire introduction, focusing on the first paragraph. Let me know what you think! InvictaHOG 03:38, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Looks great! I was going to suggest mentioning explicitly that it's uncurable at present, but on thinking the matter over a bit, I'm neutral on that. Great job!
As for the rest of the article, I was under the impression that a support group for families with CF by the name of "sixty-five roses" was notable and well-known, but the article doesn't mention it .. I'll assume I'm mistaken for now.
RandomP 05:32, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation is what you are thinking of. It's certainly notable enough for me to create a page about and to link several of their resources both within the text and in the external links. I couldn't find anything independent and reputable documenting the degree of their contribution to the disease (and I looked explicitly in several places!) but if someone had an external critique of their impact then I think they would fit nicely in the history section (I had staked out an area when I was investigating their role). I have a vague sense that they were one of the first disease support/research groups and would love to recognize that if possible InvictaHOG 05:46, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Some remarks about the current intro: Difficulty breathing is the most serious symptom - is it?? That is quite a bold statement, especially considering CF can also cause e.g. pancreatitis. Approximately 30,000 Americans have CF, making it one of the most common fatal inherited diseases. - while both individual statements are true, 30,000 Americans don't make it the most common when we have 5 or 6 billion people walking around on this globe. frequent lung infections that are treated, though not cured, by antibiotics and other medications. - of course it is possible to cure certain lung infections with antibiotics even in people with CF. --WS 17:25, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for pointing that out. I went ahead and made things a little more precise. The data on curing early pseudomonas infections really is exciting and something which I wasn't familiar with prior to working on this article. InvictaHOG 03:41, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It is looking great now. --WS 06:56, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Either is correct, don't know if british vs american, though InvictaHOG 05:08, 10 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
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