Talk:Signs and symptoms of cancer

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 22 November 2021 and 19 December 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Massmedicine. Peer reviewers: MountainMarigold.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 18:35, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

note

Hello, I've started a page for "cancer symptoms" because I believe that this would be a common term searched for by cancer patients. I am not intending it to become a large article, as the symptoms of specific cancers are well covered on the individual cancer type pages. But I felt that Wikipedia could probably benefit from a blanket page that explains some of the main symptoms, and provides links to look elsewhere. Hope that's OK - would be interested to hear any feedback. Also, I'm not a very experienced user and would welcome any attempts to make the page look better! KatArney (talk) 12:37, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

It needs better sources (see WP:MEDRS), although I appreciate that this might not be straightforward. JFW | T@lk 12:54, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

I agree, although I'm not really sure what would be best as a source. A more medical site perhaps? I'll have a think - anyone got any good ideas? KatArney (talk) 18:41, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

well you were right about the popularity anyway, it gets about 60K views pa. Wiki CRUK John (talk) 14:12, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

Hello! I am a medical student learning to edit health-related Wikipedia articles. I am planning to develop this start-quality page to a more robust article, including the following changes--

• The Lead

-- Add and link to pages describing a medical sign v symptom
-- Add notes on the importance of cancer screening given asymptomatic and nonspecific symptoms

• Cancer Symptoms

-- Describe general symptoms which may be nonspecific signs of cancer
-- Create subheadings for cancer types that links to those pages' sections on symptoms
-- Research to find reliable sources on the most predictive symptoms for each cancer type

• Cancer Signs

-- Add information on the key diagnostic workup of cancer, including but not limited to the role of Lab studies (eg, blood counts to look for anemia, lab studies to look for high calcium), Imaging, and possibly Histology and Genetics (if this seems appropriate to the scope of the article?)

• Treatment-Related and Secondary Symptoms

-- Consider adding a section to address cancer pain, chemo-induced nausea, hair loss, risk of infection, psychiatric symptoms, and so on

• Edit the overall organization and links to appropriate related pages on cancer

I'll be working on this from 11/20/21-12/20/21. Feel free to talk to me here with suggestions or intent to edit along! Massmedicine (talk) 22:13, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

Peer Review
I am providing a peer review of my classmate's work in this course:

Overall, incredible job developing this page further and adding so much content to it! Thank you for improving this great resource for patients and their families to learn more about such an important topic. Here are some comments:

• Overall

-- I am wondering whether the section headings of this page should be changed to make it clearer what information each section will be covering, as opposed to using the headings prescribed by the guidelines for medical wiki pages. This page seems a bit different than the conventional medical wiki page and may warrant its own unique headings.

• Signs and Symptoms

-- This section is very clearly organized, and medical terminology is explained in terms that can be easily understood by the general population. Great job!

• Cancer Signs and Symptoms

-- I appreciate that you not only added a lot of information, but also you organized the symptoms into "constitutional symptoms," "local symptoms," etc.
-- I wonder if the last paragraph, beginning with "The above symptoms may point to...," should be moved to precede the lists of symptoms. This can help the audience contextualize how to think about the list of symptoms they are about to read, and understand that these symptoms can be nonspecific or normal.
-- There is likely not time for this in our short course, but future editors of the page could consider organizing the signs/symptoms into a table covering the sign/symptom, an explanation of the presentation, and possible cancers that each sign/symptom corresponds to. Just a thought!

• Cancer Signs: Medical Workup

-- This section is very useful for helping people understand what tests and imaging may be done if they have worrisome signs and symptoms of cancer!
-- Perhaps a brief sentence of explanation about each test would be helpful, or hyperlinks to the relevant pages could help people understand what these tests entail

• Treatment-Related and Secondary Symptoms

-- Again, amazing job not only adding more content but also organizing it into easy-to-read sections!
-- It looks like you are still working on this section and fleshing out more information about the secondary symptoms, so great job! Again, hyperlinks to relevant pages may be helpful!

I am so excited to see your work on the article throughout the rest of the course, and really enjoyed seeing the amazing contributions you have made already. MountainMarigold (talk) 18:05, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

Warburg Effect

Hi all -- I removed the section and some details on increased lactate production of cancer cells which does not directly correlate to any symptom or sign (the subject of this page). However I did include mention of this pathway in the "Mechanisms" section. I include the original below, in case others disagree and feel it should be re-added.

"Increased Lactate Production

The Warburg Effect states that cancer cells in the presence of oxygen and glucose take a different path of energy production. Cancer cells are observed to convert glucose in the presence of oxygen into lactate through lactate dehydrogenase instead of traditionally putting pyruvate though the TCA cycle for oxidative phosphorylation. However, cancer cells still carry out oxidative phosphorylation but not primarily for the purpose of energy production but for biomass production through utilizing the intermediates from TCA cycle. This unique metabolism of cancer cells opens doors for possible cancer treatments including targeting lactate dehydrogenase and TCA intermediate production. [citation needed]"

Massmedicine (talk) 15:43, 17 December 2021 (UTC)