The lead is a little short - seems like it should include diagnostic methods and prevalence info at least. Also, the mention of resection before 1mm - I assume that's a statistical association, but it sounds rather arbitrary and probably needs a citation.
Only one question: the first sentence says melanoma is a malignant tumor, but later in the lead there's a mention of "premalignant" melanoma. Is it necessarily malignant, and if so, is there a separate term for the early stages?
Opabinia regalis15:43, 13 August 2006 (UTC)reply
Many sections are quite listy. The staging section obviously should be a list, but even some of the prose sections - History and Epidemiology especially - read like a series of only somewhat related sentences rather than a coherent story. This may be because research hasn't told a very coherent story yet, but it should still be synthesized more clearly if possible. "Prevention" should definitely be prose, except the "mnemonic" (where did that come from anyway?)
The ABCDE mnemonic comes from the Asymmetrical, Border, Color, Diameter, Evolution words. But the sections says "(see "ABCDE" mnemonic below.)" because in the list below these letters are bold too.
NCursework08:33, 13 August 2006 (UTC)reply
In fact, everybody (medical students, doctors, scientists). I can't show you exact reference for it, because there isn't any. But everybody uses it.
NCursework18:04, 13 August 2006 (UTC)reply
I think epidemiology looks pretty good. On second glance my only real problem with the history section is the first sentence: "While there is little serious doubt that melanoma is not a relatively new disease..." is just too many double negatives and qualifiers in one place. Is there any serious doubt?
Opabinia regalis20:32, 13 August 2006 (UTC)reply
I like that better, but do you really need "relatively"? Is there any intended comparison to the historicity (is that a word?) of other cancers?
Opabinia regalis04:46, 14 August 2006 (UTC)reply
No, it is NOT a new disease, just we weren't so brave to write it like that. But I removed relatively and inserted a reference (which can't be found on the net, it's from 1966) - On the antiquity of melanoma.
NCursework07:08, 14 August 2006 (UTC)reply
Looks better. Only suggestion would be an explanation of the difference between "primary" and "secondary" prevention (avoidance and vigilance?) - when I tried to look it up I discovered our
prevention article is quite poor.
Opabinia regalis20:32, 13 August 2006 (UTC)reply
To be honest, I really can't see why do we need this primary-secondary section names, without these the prevention section would be total too. Anyway I can put avoidance and vigilance next to the primary and secondary words.
NCursework20:56, 13 August 2006 (UTC)reply
Are "avoidance" and "vigilance" really good restatements of the meanings? That was my guess from the context, but I'm sure you're more knowledgeable about medical usage than I am. I'd agree that the distinction isn't critical to the section's flow.
Opabinia regalis04:46, 14 August 2006 (UTC)reply
There's a lot of emphasis on sun damage and sunburn as risk factors, but most people have had a peeling sunburn at some point in their lives - maybe flesh out the statistics on this, or find some relative-risk data?
I found a reference for this sentence: "Occasional extreme sun exposure (resulting in "sunburn") is causally related to melanoma." The reference is a study: Sun exposure and risk of melanoma. Hope it will be enough. :)
NCursework18:32, 13 August 2006 (UTC)reply
My concern here is that someone's going to read the article and think "Holy crap! I had a sunburn once; now I'm going to get skin cancer and die!" Is there some data to the effect of "x level of exposure to UV radiation increases melanoma risk by y%"?
I can't get the full text, but the abstract looks pretty statistical for reassuring the common hypochondriac. On the other hand, it's not Wikipedia's job to reassure hypochondriacs, so I don't think this is too critical.
Opabinia regalis04:46, 14 August 2006 (UTC)reply
Most of the article is well-referenced, but there's a few statements in the epidemiology section especially that don't have citations - like the "Australia" data and the "British study".
I wonder if it's possible to get a slide of normal tissue for comparison? (Also, am I right in reading the image descriptions that these are all the same case?)
Opabinia regalis20:32, 13 August 2006 (UTC)reply
"This radiation causes errors in the deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) of cells, making them go through mitosis (cell division) at an unhealthy rate. " -- Not very clear. I assume the increased mitosis rate thing refers to inappropriate cell division after the tumor has formed, but the sentence implies that radiation damage itself accelerates mitosis rates, which as far as I know is not correct. It should be explicitly stated that radiation damage induces mutations, which can accumulate as cell division proceeds to create inappropriately-dividing cancerous cells.
Is the something about melanoma metastases specifically that makes them more difficult to treat? Are they just difficult to detect, or are they more dangerous in some way than metastases from other types of cancers?
To me it sounds like the article is saying metastases of melanoma specifically are more deadly than metastases of other cancers. Is that the case? (In either case, it's not critical but it might be interesting to see comparisons in prevalence and survival rates to other common cancers.)
Opabinia regalis15:43, 13 August 2006 (UTC)reply
Some more info on familial melanoma and genetics of melanoma is probably needed. I suppose there has been some recent research in this area that is not fully reflected in the article.
Kpjas18:01, 14 August 2006 (UTC)reply
The lead is a little short - seems like it should include diagnostic methods and prevalence info at least. Also, the mention of resection before 1mm - I assume that's a statistical association, but it sounds rather arbitrary and probably needs a citation.
Only one question: the first sentence says melanoma is a malignant tumor, but later in the lead there's a mention of "premalignant" melanoma. Is it necessarily malignant, and if so, is there a separate term for the early stages?
Opabinia regalis15:43, 13 August 2006 (UTC)reply
Many sections are quite listy. The staging section obviously should be a list, but even some of the prose sections - History and Epidemiology especially - read like a series of only somewhat related sentences rather than a coherent story. This may be because research hasn't told a very coherent story yet, but it should still be synthesized more clearly if possible. "Prevention" should definitely be prose, except the "mnemonic" (where did that come from anyway?)
The ABCDE mnemonic comes from the Asymmetrical, Border, Color, Diameter, Evolution words. But the sections says "(see "ABCDE" mnemonic below.)" because in the list below these letters are bold too.
NCursework08:33, 13 August 2006 (UTC)reply
In fact, everybody (medical students, doctors, scientists). I can't show you exact reference for it, because there isn't any. But everybody uses it.
NCursework18:04, 13 August 2006 (UTC)reply
I think epidemiology looks pretty good. On second glance my only real problem with the history section is the first sentence: "While there is little serious doubt that melanoma is not a relatively new disease..." is just too many double negatives and qualifiers in one place. Is there any serious doubt?
Opabinia regalis20:32, 13 August 2006 (UTC)reply
I like that better, but do you really need "relatively"? Is there any intended comparison to the historicity (is that a word?) of other cancers?
Opabinia regalis04:46, 14 August 2006 (UTC)reply
No, it is NOT a new disease, just we weren't so brave to write it like that. But I removed relatively and inserted a reference (which can't be found on the net, it's from 1966) - On the antiquity of melanoma.
NCursework07:08, 14 August 2006 (UTC)reply
Looks better. Only suggestion would be an explanation of the difference between "primary" and "secondary" prevention (avoidance and vigilance?) - when I tried to look it up I discovered our
prevention article is quite poor.
Opabinia regalis20:32, 13 August 2006 (UTC)reply
To be honest, I really can't see why do we need this primary-secondary section names, without these the prevention section would be total too. Anyway I can put avoidance and vigilance next to the primary and secondary words.
NCursework20:56, 13 August 2006 (UTC)reply
Are "avoidance" and "vigilance" really good restatements of the meanings? That was my guess from the context, but I'm sure you're more knowledgeable about medical usage than I am. I'd agree that the distinction isn't critical to the section's flow.
Opabinia regalis04:46, 14 August 2006 (UTC)reply
There's a lot of emphasis on sun damage and sunburn as risk factors, but most people have had a peeling sunburn at some point in their lives - maybe flesh out the statistics on this, or find some relative-risk data?
I found a reference for this sentence: "Occasional extreme sun exposure (resulting in "sunburn") is causally related to melanoma." The reference is a study: Sun exposure and risk of melanoma. Hope it will be enough. :)
NCursework18:32, 13 August 2006 (UTC)reply
My concern here is that someone's going to read the article and think "Holy crap! I had a sunburn once; now I'm going to get skin cancer and die!" Is there some data to the effect of "x level of exposure to UV radiation increases melanoma risk by y%"?
I can't get the full text, but the abstract looks pretty statistical for reassuring the common hypochondriac. On the other hand, it's not Wikipedia's job to reassure hypochondriacs, so I don't think this is too critical.
Opabinia regalis04:46, 14 August 2006 (UTC)reply
Most of the article is well-referenced, but there's a few statements in the epidemiology section especially that don't have citations - like the "Australia" data and the "British study".
I wonder if it's possible to get a slide of normal tissue for comparison? (Also, am I right in reading the image descriptions that these are all the same case?)
Opabinia regalis20:32, 13 August 2006 (UTC)reply
"This radiation causes errors in the deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) of cells, making them go through mitosis (cell division) at an unhealthy rate. " -- Not very clear. I assume the increased mitosis rate thing refers to inappropriate cell division after the tumor has formed, but the sentence implies that radiation damage itself accelerates mitosis rates, which as far as I know is not correct. It should be explicitly stated that radiation damage induces mutations, which can accumulate as cell division proceeds to create inappropriately-dividing cancerous cells.
Is the something about melanoma metastases specifically that makes them more difficult to treat? Are they just difficult to detect, or are they more dangerous in some way than metastases from other types of cancers?
To me it sounds like the article is saying metastases of melanoma specifically are more deadly than metastases of other cancers. Is that the case? (In either case, it's not critical but it might be interesting to see comparisons in prevalence and survival rates to other common cancers.)
Opabinia regalis15:43, 13 August 2006 (UTC)reply
Some more info on familial melanoma and genetics of melanoma is probably needed. I suppose there has been some recent research in this area that is not fully reflected in the article.
Kpjas18:01, 14 August 2006 (UTC)reply