Talk:Arteriovenous malformation

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Contents

[edit] WOw

WOw man some of that stuff is dangerousZomborg 20:02, 17 July 2006 (UTC)


I think this article could have some example images of people with AVM. Like that girl on TV with the swollen nose. I'm pretty sure she suffered AVM too.

The current article mentions an arteriorgram. Wikipedia has an redirect entry for arteriogram, but not for arteriorgram (note slight difference in spelling). There are 300x as many google hits for the former vs. the latter. I was going to "correct" the spelling, and link the term in the article, but am not familiar with the terminology, and didn't want to risk introducing incorrect information. Any experts here? 72.94.96.128 17:34, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm not an expert, but the use of arteriography shows that arteriogram is clearly the term that was meant to be used here. I've gone ahead and made the change. --68.13.147.241 19:28, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
Arteriogram is the usage that was used around me when I had the actual test. Alcourt 05:43, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

The phrasing on it not being hereditary is obtuse, it took me several readings to get the intended meaning.

Other things that might be worth mentioning:

Most AVMs are found only in autopsy of persons who died of unrelated causes. (Sorry, don't recall the sources I found on this). NPR was citing figures of approximately 300k people in the US estimated to have this condition. I saw somewhere it claimed (and this fits my understanding as well) that most AVMs are found in persons aged around 9-35. No, I don't understand why.

Larger AVMs often have a "slow leak" hemmoraging which can create symptoms. Every survivor story I've read of sudden massive hemmorage has involved a very small AVM or blood vessel.

Normal treatment involves either surgical blockage/removal of the impacted blood vessels (often with aneurysm clips) or radiation surgery (I want to say gamma knife) to shrink the impacted blood vessels. Another technique using a "glue" to block off the blood vessels is also used at times.

Since I don't have references handy, I'm not editing the main article yet.

Alcourt 05:43, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

This page looks weird. I appreciate the effort of trying to make the whole thing make sense to laymen, but, describing AVM primarily with phrases like "jamming a tangle of flexible soda straws through the sponge" and "a tangle of spaghetti noodles" etc. are still rather confusing. I think it would be better to give a proper description with medical lexicon, and perhaps add the allegories sparingly.

Also, I believe the paragraph describing the circulatory system is too much - readers can always refer to the relevant articles. This article should be mainly about the medical condition. 218.102.218.204 07:55, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, doctors and medical references often use similar allegorical language. It doesn't help that it seems that any of a series of malformations of the capillary seem to be called an AVM. In some literature, it states that an AVM has no capillary, others state that the capillaries are brittle and huge, "like a tangled nest of worms". I agree that it should be cleaned up, I'm just at a loss to find a good way to explain it. The NIH page stays very generic and references defects. Maybe this article should be similarly generic at first and then give the more colorful descriptions separately? Alcourt 13:36, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure, but I think that hemorrhage risk in von Hippel-Lindau disease isn't associated with AVM, but with hemangioblastoma. Filip en (talk) 04:31, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] External links

Wikipedia's external links policy and the specific guidelines for medicine-related articles do not permit the inclusion of external links to non-encyclopedic material, particularly including internet chat boards and e-mail discussion groups. Because I realize that most normal editors haven't spent much time with these policies, please let me provide specific information from the guidelines:

  • This page, which applies to all articles in the entire encyclopedia, says that links "to social networking sites (such as MySpace or Fan sites), discussion forums/groups (such as Yahoo! Groups), USENET newsgroups or e-mail lists" are to be avoided.
  • This page deprecates ""helpful" external links, such as forums, self-help groups and local charities."
  • This medical-specific page reinforces the pan-Wiki rules, with a note that "All links must meet Wikipedia's external links guidelines, which in particular exclude discussion forums."

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and while it may occasionally be useful to patients or their families, it is not a web directory for support groups. Please do not re-insert links that do not conform to the standard rules. Any editor, BTW, is welcome to read all of the rules and perform an "audit" in the remaining links. Thanks, WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:58, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

"WhatamIdoing", thank you very much for monitoring this page. I reviewed the external link policy and while you are correct in reminding us that Wikipedia deprecates "helpful external links, such as forums, self-help groups and local charities," the policy also states "If the disease is very rare, then a manageable set of charitable organisations may be of encyclopaedic interest." Based on that, I am including a link to AVM Survivors Network because this is a "very rare medical condition" and there is no suitable page listing web-based support groups that would be suitable to link to, as suggested in the policy. If you wish to discuss this, you may definitely contact me via AVM Survivors Network site. Sincerely, AVM Survivors Network Moderator, 31 May 2008 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.153.131.26 (talk) 21:58, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

That rule doesn't apply because AVM Survivors Network does not appear to be a charitable organization: it's an internet chat group.
Furthermore, as a moderator for the group, you are specifically not allowed to insert a link to your site anywhere on Wikipedia, no matter how relevant or justified, because of the Conflict of Interest rules. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:40, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
Here in the US, registered charities are listed at guidestar.org. Where's your listing?
And where's your compliance with Wikipedia's conflict of interest policy?
And where's your compliance with Wikipedia's NO LINKS TO CHAT BOARDS rule? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:51, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
Good points, WhatamIdoing.
Not all registered charities are listed at guidestar.org. One must register with them.
True, as moderator I will not add this external link.
We are a new online support site who also are in the process of funding research and expanding into other services. In your opinion, how can we modify the site to be considered a charitable organization instead of just considered a "chat board"? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.247.53.184 (talk) 14:24, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

This is by no stretch of the imagination a good link for the article. I'd recommend adding http://search.dmoz.org/cgi-bin/search?search=Arteriovenous+malformation as a way of giving people the option to look at a broader and managed set of websites. Tim Vickers (talk) 18:47, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Trimmed out the Seattle link as it was a generic information page and the box at the top already has several. Trimmed out the avmfoundation page as it seems to just accept donations; the avmsupport organizations both had more information and more links.
Unfortunately the DMOZ doesn't have a AVM page, though it does appear on some of the other pages; given MEDMOS's loophole for rare disorders, I'm actually OK with leaving these two links in and not using a DMOZ (there is an EL restriction against linking to search result pages, and you have to dig a bit to get to them; plus, it's the 2 links that are already on the page, I like having DMOZ when it provides something other than what is already there and significantly reduces the links; this does only the latter, and only by one link. WLU (talk) 18:52, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Okay, perhaps what might make sense is to get a category for AVM on DMOZ and, once it's up, adding this link to the article. Fair enough? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.251.18.174 (talk) 21:28, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] registered charities

70.247,

Since you asked, my definition of a "real" charity in the US is one that filed a 1023 with the IRS and got it approved. I did not find your org listed in IRS Pub 78 or its most recent update; you are therefore not a real charity (or else an extremely new one). Inclusion in Guidestar.org is automatic for charities: they pull the list from the IRS's database. You can convince me otherwise by providing me with the org's tax id number and the case number at the top of the IRS determination letter.

But let me be clear: Just because a website is run by a charity does not mean that it gets linked by Wikipedia. External links should have information (not chat boards or fundraising information). Linked sites should comply with all of the WP:EL and [WPMEDMOS]] rules, particularly the issue of being interesting or useful to the general reader (instead of primarily being of interest to patients or professionals). Above all, there must be some good reason to include them: Wikipedia is NOT a web directory.

So if you wanted to create a linkable website, then you need to look at those rules and see what applies. In a nutshell, we link to pages that provide more information than a "perfect" article or a "unique resource" that you wouldn't expect in an encyclopedia. As an example of a unique resource, I'd bet that some articles about particular math or finance concepts include links to specialized online calculators. I don't know what (if anything) the equivalent would be for this area, but perhaps that will give you an idea.

The DMOZ solution might be simpler and more appropriate, however. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:23, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] In pop culture

Death to pop culture! That being said, I trimmed the pop culture section down. MEDMOS does allow for some, but there's no need for a bullet for each House episode particularly when they have their own dedicated pages. Also removed Grey's Anatomy, which is a single episode that doesn't seem to have its own link. 6 Feet Under it's a major story arc, not just a knock-off, so I left it. The unlinked book I removed, and the broadway play I left in. The Who documentary was unlinked, and had been tagged - per WP:PROVEIT, until there's a citation it's been removed. WLU (talk) 18:52, 2 June 2008 (UTC)