Talk:Cystic fibrosis/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Casliber (talk · contribs) 06:19, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I will start reviewing here and do some copyediting as I go. Please revert any changes I inadvertently make to meaning. Hopefully I will try to give it a bit of a shove to FAC. I will jot queries below. Casliber (talk · contribs) 06:19, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

• The Signs and symptoms is currently unreferenced. It really needs a reference from a consensus statement, textbook or Review Article on CF. Some discusion of timeline of sx would be good too - eg. what age lung symptoms become evident etc, as well as liver problems later on.

• I ve added some references, please take a look at that MaenK.A._Talk 14:15, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Better - I still don't get a clear reading from the lung section as to average age problems appear and become severe. Casliber (talk · contribs) 10:54, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

• Cardiorespiratory complications is the most common cause of death (~80%) in patients followed by most CF centers in the United States - patient age range needed here. Also a bit vague, need to describe what specifically they die of - sepsis, resp failure etc.

• I also added a cite needed tag here.

• Prognosis section should contain at least some figures from elsewhere - eg UK and/or Europe, and any third world data - eg still lethal at 6 months mostly?

• I hate to say this but ref 2 really needs page numbers and inline referencing. with book at bottom.

• I recalled that liver and pancreas issues were becoming more prominent now that patients were living longer with their lung problems better treated (?)

More later

Hi, I will be working with you on this, and I ll start by adding citations and references to unreferenced parts of the article MaenK.A._Talk 22:37, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Cool. Will have more stuff and I'll copyedit too. Casliber (talk · contribs) 22:42, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Review by User:MuZemike

I'll be taking over this review as it looks like the previous reviewer has abandoned it.

Prose issues

• Regarding commas in a series, you appear to be inconsistent in the usage of them. For example, in first paragraph in the "Signs and symptoms" section, you have the following:
  • The hallmark symptoms of cystic fibrosis are salty tasting skin, poor growth and poor weight gain despite a normal food intake, accumulation of thick, sticky mucus, frequent chest infections and coughing or shortness of breath. → No comma preceding the last item
  • The causes of growth failure are multi-factorial, and include chronic lung infection, poor absorption of nutrients through the gastrointestinal tract, and increased metabolic demand due to chronic illness. → Comma preceding the last item

Either style is acceptable, but please stick with one style throughout the entire article for consistency.

• You have some instances of "noun plus '-ing'", which you have a word ending in "-ing" directly proceeding a noun; this is normally considered poor English usage which unfortunately is done often. Here are some instances of that which I found and need to be reworded (problem parts underlined):
  • In the "Lung and sinus" subsection: ... and respiratory failure requiring support with breathing masks such as ...
• The paragraph lengths in the "Lung and sinus" and "Gastrointestinal" subsections are somewhat inconsistent. Try and see if you can either split those long paragraphs (as they are on the longish side, which isn't good for readers) or something else. Try to avoid one-sentence paragraphs as that makes the prose not look as professional as it should (especially for articles like this).
• In the "Chronic infections" subsection, very last sentence: Although the clinical relevance of the fungal airway colonization is still a matter of debate, filamentous fungi may contribute to the local inflammatory response, and therefore to the progressive deterioration of the lung function, as often happens with allergic broncho-pulmonary aspergillosis (ABPA) - the most common fungal disease in the context of CF, involving a Th2-driven immune response to Aspergillus. → Two things. First, the sentence is very long and drawn out and should be split. Second, it contains some words to avoid (words that basically editorialize) such as "although" and "therefore" which should be substituted with other terms that make it sound more neutral.
• In the "Diagnosis and monitoring" section, the first paragraph is a tad confusing. You first talk about the "sweat test" and then you go to talk about other stuff about infant screening and then come back to the "sweat test". Since that first paragraph is a bit long, my recommendation would be to split that into two paragraphs, each focusing on a separate topic (i.e. one on infant screening and the other on testing).
• In general, that "Diagnosis and monitoring" section needs to be organized a little better, as I see we go back to the "sweat test" again later in that section.
• This one-sentence paragraph (which such paragraphs are discouraged) is too long and drawn out: Economically, for carrier couples of cystic fibrosis,... prenatal testing and abortion has higher economic benefit.

Verifiability issues

• In the "Cause" section, end of first paragraph, that needs a citation to see where the information is coming from.
• Several the paragraphs in the "Diagnosis and monitoring" section need citations to see where the information is coming from.
• Note that you also have a few places already tagged with {{citation needed}} since November 2009.

Conclusions

More coming as I review throughout the day. –MuZemike 17:02, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Failed – I'm sorry, but after getting about halfway through the article and then seeing entire sections of material that is completely unsourced, I cannot pass this article for GA at this time. There are also some [unsourced] portions that indicate original research such as In any case, the benefits must be determined to outweigh these risks prior to going forward with testing. Alternatively, some couples choose to undergo third party reproduction with egg or sperm donors.

To move forward with the article, I recommend the following:

• A thorough copyedit of the article and consistent paragraphing/lengths.
• A peer review in which someone can go through the entire article and indicate any shortcomings in prose, verifiability, and MoS.
• Basically anything with a {{Citation needed}} tag needs to be addressed by adding a citation of where the information came from. This allows people to try to verify said information and fall within the verifiability policy. (cf. This policy requires that anything challenged or likely to be challenged, including all quotations, be attributed to a reliable source in the form of an inline citation, and that the source directly support the material in question.)

Hopefully this helps out. Thank you and sorry, –MuZemike 18:25, 30 April 2010 (UTC)