Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Keratoconus

Keratoconus

(Self-nom). This article has expanded substantially over the last few months, and I believe offers a comprehensive overview of a little-known, yet significant ophthalmic disease. A peer review was requested some weeks ago and comments raised there addressed. --BillC 10:39, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

• Support. Would have expected it to be one after finding it by chance. —Nightstallion (?) 11:42, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

• Support Very good and detailed article. Tarret 17:00, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

• Support Some comments:

• The lead should give "why" it's important. How many people are affected each year, prevalence (sp), what age group. Also, should mention something about etiology.
• I would drop the inline citation in the lead, it's distracting and inconsistent, as multiple claims are given in the lead, while only one is given a citation. (similary, in medical or science journals, rarely is the abstract given a citation, and the lead is the abstract here).
• History part is a bit insufficient. In addition to naming the people involved in studying the disease, should contain information about what did they "know" at the time and what "remained" to be known. Even though more about description of disorder can be added, history part now looks very good and put into context
• Diagnosis is hard to follow. Should contain a mini-intro about "rationale" for the methods. Ex. First Snellen test, since it's what every opthalamologist do first. Then physical examination of cornea such as curvature, features, colors, because keratoconus has the following features. Then go into specific methods. The current form goes to the methods first without providing a rationale first, and I think it's unclear. Diagnosis section now is clearer and easy to read.

The sentence "opthal tend not to ask what patients see," what's the rationale? Is it relevant?

• Cause, minor rephrase "the disease sometimes running within families" to "the disease running in certain families." Rephrase "cornea by proteases (a class of enzymes), which break some of the collagen" to "cornea by proteases, enzymes that break some of collagen." By the way, what kind of protease, any proteases? Are they overexpressed or just overactive?
• Genetic background should be expanded to more than just one sentence. Most people don't bother to read the journal, so should summarize about what loci is the putative gene involved, presumably the mutation runs in the family, and what the the suspected gene (cornea specific enhancer element, protease...?)
• The treatment sections are better than other IMO. But various mentions of company names, is it proper? I am not for either side.
• Other diseases: don't put the author who wrote a review in this section. Instead, link to that section as inline citation or as reference.

• Summary Overall the article has it's potentials. Grammer and others are fine, the main things are the lead should bring relevance, history should be expanded, and the diagnosis part should first give rationale for methods, then describe the methods themselves. I think this article is a good example of what wikipedia should have more as its FA, so I won't oppose here. These comments (objections) are easily actionable, when they are fixed, I'll give my strong support. Temporary account 22:20, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
• update Very good edits by the nominator, I haven't comprehensively re-read the article, but right now looks a lot better. I'll come back in a few days to see if any changes are made and give my support then. Nice job. Temporary account 19:15, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the comprehensive response above. Have made the following changes so far:

• Strengthen lead section to indicate prevalence, age groups affected, and some introduction to etiology.
• Remove single citation from lead section.
• Removed reviewing authors' names from the final section. --BillC 19:46, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
• Rephrased 'Cause'. More work on enzyme action required.
• Expanded history slightly, but a visit to Moorfields Eye Hospital library in the next few days is required, I think.
• Removed corporate names from Intrastromal Rings section, though I think the device names ought to remain, as to many these are the names by which they are known. "Intacs" is turning up in PubMed searches paper titles, for example. --BillC 21:20, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
• Added more to History.
• Rewrote diagnosis to explain clinical methodology better.
• Expanded on a couple of short paragraphs, and combined another two. --BillC 07:37, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
• The latest changes:

• Removed redundant term from first para.
• Expanded history
• Added to genetics section
• Added handheld keratoscope and retinoscopy
• Gel injection as a intrastromal ring modality
• Combined some of the shorter paras.
• Added incidence rate--BillC 19:03, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

• Object. Good information, it seems very well researched. The biggest problem lies in the short paragraphs that make for choppy prose. Combine or expand any under 3 sentences to make for fuller ideas and smoother prose. 2) I'm a bit concerned about the note at the end on Posterior keratoconus. That suggests this article should be at 'anterior keratoconus', and a more general article or a disambiguation at Keratoconus. Otherwise the other condition is buried in a spot few would find if they only see this article. - Taxman ^Talk 18:40, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

'Ordinary' keratoconus is almost never called 'anterior keratoconus', but simply as keratoconus. (A google for "anterior keratoconus" produced 182 hits; one for "keratoconus -anterior" produced 376,000). I used the qualifier there to distinguish from posterior keratoconus, which is a different disease, as did my source for that section. I will reword that para to remove the word anterior. If anything, posterior keratoconus could have its own article under that name, though it is a rare condition. I will also review the text to try to combine some of the shorter paragraphs. --BillC 19:54, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

That's fine to justify the naming. Once the rest of the items that have been brought up here have been addressed, I would certainly support. - Taxman ^Talk 22:30, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

• Object. Call me conservative (and consider that I am not a native speaker), but constructions like can affect the person's ability to, for example, legally drive a car or are effective enough to allow the patient to still drive a car make me feel slightly nauseated. Split infinitives are ugly, and split infitives with inserted clauses are unspeakably ugly, IMHO. Kosebamse 10:32, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

I am of course biased, having written those sentences, but as a native speaker didn't see anything drastically wrong with them. I have however reworded them to remove the split infinitives. They were the only such examples I could find in the article. --BillC 21:00, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Support. Well referenced and comprehensive, a fine article. Kosebamse 04:28, 25 March 2006 (UTC)