Talk:Neutropenia

Expanded the article and included simpler way to explain certain topics did not remove any text

Expanded the article and did not remove any text. Inserted exlinks on the links page.

Mary Ash 20:23, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

External Link to The Severe Chronic Neutropenia International Registry Will Not Work

Could someone fix the link to the above site. I tried without success. Thanks! Mary Ash 05:36, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

http://depts.washington.edu/registry/ works.

Fixed the link Mary Ash 20:50, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Some edits, primarily flow and reference

I did some reference work, both in terms of internal wikilinking and source references. In general, the preference is to refer to specific sources as citations, not narrative descriptions in text unless there is no alternative.

In some cases, I changed the capitalization or precise terminology so it would match the wikilink. The primary authority on these is Medical Subject Headings (MeSH), with a few variations:

• General CZ style is initial cap only other than proper names. It's more difficult for a name widely used as an acronym; different authors have different styles and we need to standardize. Since searching is case-sensitive, lots of redirects help.
• MeSH often uses things like "general, more specific", where we avoid commas and would tend to use "specific general".
• MeSH also tends to put plurals on things that aren't really collective nouns, which we avoid.

I'll check into the link to the registry, or, alternatively, to journal sources. While we'll use a clearly reviewed and stable secondary source such as eMedicine or the Merck Manual, we tend to avoid sourcing wikis unless the reference is to a stable and reviewed/non-anonymous contribution.

Things will flow better, I think, if the general description of an absolute neutrophil count moves to the lede paragraph; the computation and example could be below or in its own article.

I've been trying to generalize a number of articles to include veterinary medicine -- on a very personal level, ANC has been one of the primary factors used to schedule my feline associate's chemotherapy for feline squamous cell carcinoma.

Thanks!

--Howard C. Berkowitz 11:06, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

The registry is THE source concerning this condition. It is located at the University of Washington which has a long history of researching blood conditions such as leukemia and neutropenia. It would be great if you could get the link to work as I used it as a primary source for this article. Thanks!Mary Ash 14:50, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Noticed your comments about your feline associate. I"m sorry. Neutropenia can affect our pet for various reasons. My three feline associates, although aging, are doing very well. The only one with significant medical problems is my old brown tabby Andy who suffers from chronic kidney problems. I cook up his chicken and rice cat food a couple times a week. Mary Ash 15:03, 30 July 2010 (UTC)MA

You may already be doing it, but subcutaneous fluid injections help greatly with chronic kidney disease in dogs and cats, and interfere very little with quality of life. Mr. Clark gets them three times a day, not because the fluid has to be given that often for CKD but that he has to have an antibiotic injected that often -- he sometimes doesn't even seem to notice the stick.

Why would there be a single preferred source rather than peer-reviewed medical publications? If nothing else, if CZ just draws from one source, what value do we add?

Although we agreed with the oncologists to stop the chemotherapy, we also agree with them that we basically have a healthy, happy cat with a large tumor on his cheek. One of the challenges in planning the chemotherapy, especially with carboplatin, is that they wait for neutropenia to develop, and then start to recover, before scheduling the next treatment. He has had a concurrent infection, and his neutrophils have been high -- we don't know if it's inflammatory response to the tumor, or infection, but it did make the treatment intervals hard to plan. Nevertheless, we are now focused on comfort care and he seems to be doing well -- the tumor can grow in one direction and not do too much harm. Howard C. Berkowitz 15:09, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

I used varied sources but I'd love to see the registry get some face time. They are experts in the field and their work may help others some day. As to the cats, don't know how to give sub q injections. Mary Ash 15:27, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

SC injections, and even fluid infusion, are quite easy in cats and dogs, with their flexible skins. While I already knew how to do it, most vets, when asked, will teach owners. Howard C. Berkowitz 21:23, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Haven't checked the edit history but nice edits!

I haven't checked the edit history but nice edits! The article looks super. Mary Ash 19:47, 30 July 2010 (UTC)