Talk:Diphtheria

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Ideal sources for Wikipedia's health content are defined in the guideline Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (medicine) and are typically review articles. Here are links to possibly useful sources of information about Diphtheria.

PubMed provides review articles from the past five years (limit to free review articles)
The TRIP database provides clinical publications about evidence-based medicine.
Other potential sources include: Centre for Reviews and Dissemination and CDC

Information still missing

As an amateur I do not know the correct initial (or empirical) treatment for diphteria. Could anyone enlighten? JFW | T@lk 12:33, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

wht part of the population those the dipheria

It is virtually non-existent in Western countries as a result of vaccination. In Eastern Europe it is more common at the moment, and affects the poorer classes. JFW | T@lk 21:41, 11 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Low socio-economic — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dr.Mosab (talk • contribs) 08:56, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

according to the Treatment

the treatment of case or carriers:

if diphtheria is strongly suspected clinically ; antitoxins should given immediately after bacteriologic specimen without waiting the results

serotherapy : single dose 20.000-100.000 Iμ is given I.M or I.V depending on the severity of the disease.
Penicillin or Erythromycin is given with antitoxic sera :
-procain penicillin (25.000-50.000 μ kg/day) for children and 102 million with maximums 2gm/day for adults in two doses
-Parental Erythromycin 40-50 mg/kg/day for 14 days — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dr.Mosab (talk • contribs) 09:06, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Pronunciation

I removed the pronunciation from the article because it looked to me like an attempt at prescriptivism against the [pθ] pronunciation. I considered putting in both variants, but since there's dialectal (and theoretical) variation as to how to transcribe the second vowel, and since it's really not an irregular word that you'd need to be told the pronunciation for anyway, I decided it's better just to leave it out entirely. --Ptcamn 11:55, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Fact-check

Removed from Treatment section:

You shouldn't take any medications containing lysoliam in them if you have diptheria.

Reference? What is "lysoliam" referring to? Tearlach 09:08, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Membrane

What is the nature of the "pseudomembrane?" Is it a thick film of bacterial cells, or something secreted by the bacteria? Or is it some sort of defense mechanism created by the body? Why does it form a film? I would be interested if some kind medical person could add these details. -- 125.236.160.136 (talk) 08:23, 19 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The simplified version is, the pseudomembrane is a film buildup of the organism (Corynebacterium diphtheriae), combined with dead epithelial cells and dead WBCs.Wzrd1 (talk) 13:59, 29 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Does the pseudomembrane always appear in diphtheria victims? The text doesn't say if it's a prerequisite for this diagnosis. The info box doesn't even list it as a symptom. Is it possible that at times the pseudomembrane occurs, but not always in the mouth or oropharnyx and is therefore not always seen in a cursory exam?

I ask because it turns out that I have 4 little preschool relatives who died in Cleveland in November 1912 - an uncle and three of his cousins. The 4 families all lived very close to each other, within two blocks, so the kids were playmates. Three have diphtheria as the cause of death on their death certificates, but the 4th one, in the middle of the deaths, has nephritis x 3 days with dropsy as his cause of death. It doesn't say what region of his body was swollen.

Since the lede mentions kidney complications, I can't help but wonder if this child died of diphtheria, too, given the close proximity to his cousins, but that it was missed by the doctor who came to the house to examine the body. (It's not the same doctor who saw the other 3 children.)

To summarize - is a pseudomembrane always visible in an oral exam, especially on a dead child? Could nephritis be a complication of diphtheria? These are questions that the article doesn't address. Generally speaking, although there are plenty of zebras around, when you hear hoof-beats, look for a horse.

Thank you for your time, Wordreader (talk) 17:08, 5 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, the 3 children diagnosed with diphtheria supposedly all died within 1 to 4 days after symptoms appeared according to their death certificates. Wordreader (talk) 17:12, 5 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

No mention of vaccine?

I just edited the history section. I'm surprised there was no mention of the vaccine, so I added that and a chart demonstrating the death rates recorded in the United States. I know it's messy, my apologies for being footnote impaired, hopefully someone who understood the wikipedia footnoting page will be along. Uncleosbert (talk) 20:11, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Uncleosbert - I'm sorry to see that your chart was withdrawn. Would you consider reinstating it? I'm very interested. Thank you, Wordreader (talk) 15:54, 21 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

cardiac arrest

The article currently asserts

In addition, the hyper sensitivity of the larynx may cause cardiac arrest around the intubation

which doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. An earlier version made more sense, but I couldn't quite follow where in the editing history this got changed or why; there may have been some good-faith change that was intended but didn't quite get implemented right. Anyone who can figure out what this is supposed to say, please fix it. --Trovatore (talk) 12:55, 6 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

wording

The phrase "is given to all school children" should be changed to "is reccomended for all school aged children" since it is a CDC reccomendation, but not something that ALL school children do. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.137.144.48 (talk) 17:41, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Good point. I changed it as you suggested. Franklinjefferson (talk) 18:37, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

ICD-10

I belive that correct code is A36, not A30? Vedran12 (talk) 21:37, 29 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union did not break up in the 1980s. Please fix the data and cause of breakout of ditheria at the time in USSR. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.62.210.75 (talk) 16:01, 16 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Cutaneous diphtheria

Article contains no information on CUTANEOUS diphtheria, an important form of infection independent from respiratory cases. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.230.28.62 (talk) 03:39, 10 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

vaccination

"After the breakup of the former Soviet Union in the late 1980s, vaccination rates in its constituent countries fell so low that there was an explosion of diphtheria cases."

DPT vaccine by no means can't prevent disease, because it contains toxoid, but not bacterium.I don't understand how this myth is spread. We should remove the link between vaccination rates and explosion of diphtheria cases from article. 84.228.9.40 (talk) 06:44, 15 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

That is nonsense. The first sentence says (read it carefully) that DPT is effective at preventing disease. Then it's followed by two sentences of complete rubbish. Vaccines using toxoids are very effective and very safe. Their only disadvantage (which is covered by the article) is the need for repetition throughout life (maybe every 10 years or so). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Srdau (talk • contribs) 09:11, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Jargonism.

This article is loaded with undefined jargon, making it inaccessible to casual readers, the vast majority of people who come here for information. I my opinion, this is the biggest failing of Wikipedia's technical, scientific, and medical articles. For instance, take the Mechanism section - it's virtually indecipherable. Authors: define as you go along! Provide the definition of a term in plain English the first time it appears and put the technical term in parenthesis or vice versa. Either way, a person can immediately understand the gist and keep reading.

Although links are very valuable by underscoring the multidimensional nature of Wikipedia and allowing readers to pursue more information if they choose, they are frequently a bane. A reader is forced into clicking a link in order to try to understand a term, then must click a link in the 2nd article to understand a term, and is soon ping-ponging all over Wikipedia until they quit in frustration or forget why they came here in the first place! That is a person who will bad-mouth WP to others as a resource (with cause!) and will never donate money for its upkeep.

In my strong opinion, the goal should be to keep the reader on the page, allowing them to jump only if they want to do so.

Back to the Mechanism section: what in the world is a "regulation subunit"? It remains completely undefined. There's not even a WP link because there's no WP article or definition for this obscure term. I tried a browser search for it and looked at three pages of results. It's used in them all, but likewise remains undefined. This page has the unsurprising glossary definition of "subunit", but nothing about how the "regulation" modifier alters the meaning - http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/glossary=subunit This is one small example of the failure of WP technical articles to its core audience.

Sad, but true. Thank you, Wordreader (talk) 16:27, 21 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Similarity to another webpage.

There are remarkable similarities in this article to "Diphtheria" - http://www.austincc.edu/microbio/2321/diph.html . Did one come first and inspire or inform the other or is this a coincidence? Thank you, Wordreader (talk) 16:37, 21 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yes that source is copied from us as are hundreds of others. Here is how you know

They use the CDC dated May 3, 2013.
We look at the Wikipedia article from then [1]
Their content still matches ours. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 21:49, 21 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Something went wrong...

...and I hope someone familiar with the development of the article (or the topic) can fix it easily. In the third paragraph it says:

"These antibiotics may also be used for prevention in those who have been exposed diphtheria antitoxin." Then it rambles off into the next sentence,

"A surgical procedure known as a tracheostomy is sometimes needed to open the airway in severe cases." Which doesn't seem to mater much in a paragraph about prevention and treatment. I'm sure IVs are used, too, but there is no need to mention them, either, at this point. Huw Powell (talk) 02:58, 6 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This bit was wrong "those who have been exposed diphtheria antitoxin" have corrected.

In most infections tracheostomy is nearly never needed. This one it maybe which is why mentioning the procedure is notable. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:24, 6 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Transmission

It could be useful to add more information on the transmission of Diphtheria. Knowing all the possible ways that the disease can be contracted could help prevent transimission.Joeshmo265 (talk) 09:02, 15 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified

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Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Joeshmo265.

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2022 cases in Australia

In early July 2022, two cases were reported in the North Eastern corner of New South Wales. This is an area with a heavy population of anti-vaccine dogma, and has the lowest rate of vaccinations for all vaccinable diseases in all of Australia. 2001:8003:E48C:E601:307E:17BD:D501:AF01 (talk) 07:42, 3 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]