Talk:Devil facial tumour disease

Comments
Australian spelling of tumor? tumour

Both spellings are pleniful on the net; the Australian variant should clearly be used in this context.

Tony 02:57, 6 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Agreed, and that's how the Nature abstract spells it; I've left the link to canine transmissible venereal tumor with the non-U spelling, though, since that reflects the spelling in that article. --Calair 07:02, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

I heard this disease was spread because the animals' mating habits involve biting each other on the face... is this true or am I thinking of another animal/disease? Or maybe I'm entirely wrong altogether, heh... Robin Chen 22:05, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Wouldn't "aggressive mating" cover that, though? - 220.237.30.150 09:20, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Sure this cancer can be transmitted?
It is entirely possible that the parasite is being transmitted between the animals. There must be a cited article that addresses this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ninjagecko (talk • contribs) 13:43, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Number of related transmissible cancers
From the introduction: "Transmissible cancer is extremely rare. There is only one other known type - canine transmissible venereal tumor (CTVT)". Feline leukemia is also transmissible. It is caused by the feline leukemia virus. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 152.79.236.37 (talk) 18:35, 22 May 2009 (UTC)


 * The feline leukemia virus article makes it clear in the intro that this disease is NOT a cancer and that the "leukemia" tag is a misnomer. Myles325a (talk) 05:46, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

And the article itself cites Syrian hamster tumor as yet another example of a non-viral transmissible cancer. Seems like that first sentence should really be corrected.--BenA (talk) 14:47, 28 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I've removed that detail from the article, as internet sources say that Syrian hamster tumours are the result of inbreeding, not transmission. If there are other transmissable cancers apart from from the Tassy devil's and the dog ones, then I would like to hear about it. Myles325a (talk) 06:03, 17 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Would you include human cervical cancer? Steve Graham (talk) 17:28, 2 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I would, since it's caused by HPV. StuRat (talk) 22:55, 13 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Wouldn't it still be classed as transmitted, even if to the unborn foetus? The word transmission isn't limited by method, only by the fact that it has moved from one place to another.  I'm probably splitting hairs though, I usually do :-) 78.86.230.62 (talk) 21:25, 2 January 2010 (UTC)


 * The distinction is that the tumour is transmitted by the tumour cells themselves, not by an external agent such as a virus - so no to HPV transmitted cervical cancer and no to feline leukemia virus.96.54.53.165 (talk) 01:09, 5 January 2010 (UTC)


 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dichloroacetic_acid I'm sure this will cure the Tasmanian Devil! And boobies too. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.21.235.76 (talk) 07:58, 12 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Left in, but struck through, as vandalism. Le Prof 73.210.155.96 (talk) 04:01, 23 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Please note that while all this may be correct, and all has made its way into the article, it is all WP:OR (your expertise, unsourced), arriving at the number, and the examples. This is not what WP:VERIFY and WP:OR states we are to do here. Le Prof 73.210.155.96 (talk) 04:51, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

Why now?
If the reason for this cancer is that the Devils went through a population bottleneck of 500 individuals 10,000 years ago, how is it that the spontaneous outbreak of a cancer happens to be driving them extinct now? It seems to me that either the cancer won't drive them extinct or else there is more to the story... Wnt (talk) 15:04, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Because of the bottleneck, individuals of the species are too closely related to each other. Normally this kind of transmission would not occur due to immunity to non-self cancer cells.96.54.53.165 (talk) 01:12, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

>>The devils have a less advanced T-Cell repertoire than humans, their immune system is surprisingly simplistic. Because of this, the cancer cells are actually recognized as "self" and they do not mount a tumor immunity response. In addition there is no or reduced expression of any sort of possible antigens on the MHCs for the CD8+ T cells to find. "How the devil facial tumor disease escapes host immune responses." Hannah V Siddle and Jim Kaufman. OncoImmunology Vol. 2, Iss. 8,2013. Further research on their immune system is in the process of publication from Arizona State as of May 2017 and should be out soon. The tumor also causes behavioral changes, increasing aggression, so when the Devils bite each other during social interaction there are open wounds for the cells to enter. "Tasmanian devil facial tumor disease: Insights into reduced tumor surveillance from an unusual malignancy". Iain O'Niell. 5 April 2010. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:8800:1202:2F00:BD:1E5D:4C82:FA7E (talk) 03:30, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

Immunity?
ADELAIDE, Australia — The discovery of a genetically distinct colony of Tasmanian devils may save the species from being wiped out by a contagious cancer that has decimated the population, Australian scientists said Wednesday.

So far, the colony in northwestern Tasmania state has proven immune to the face cancer that has ravaged the iconic animal — made famous worldwide by their Looney Tunes cartoon namesake, Taz.

The furry black animals spread a fast-killing cancer when they bite each other's faces. It causes grotesque facial tumors that eventually prevent them from feeding and can affect their internal organs.

Devil Facial Tumor Disease was discovered in 1996. Since then, the numbers of Tasmanian devils have plummeted by 70 percent. Last spring, Australia listed the devils as an endangered species and current estimates suggest the Tasmanian devil could be extinct within 25 years say researchers at the University of Tasmania, who monitored populations across the island. While earlier studies had looked at devils in eastern Tasmania, this time they took a wider sampling of 400 devils across the state.

Twenty percent of those were found to be genetically different from the eastern devils, and so far have not caught the disease. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.121.204.129 (talk) 23:40, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

In 2007 researchers found that the devils from the north-west part of Tasmania did not have the fatal gene. Their immune system responded to an infection with the cancer. Maybe this is an indication that there are more places in the world (i.e. zoo's) where devils are not susceptible to infection ?

Myxomatosis?
Could this have been caused by the introduction of myxomatosis into Australia in 1950? It's the same sort of idea; facial tumours caused by a transmissible pathogen. Could it have jumped between species? if so, there is a vaccine (ATCvet:QI08AD02) for myxomatosis. Could this be modified for the tazzy devil? =Benjamin= (t)·(c)·(e) 01:44, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

MOS idea
Manual of Style (medicine-related articles) may provide structural ideas, although it is focussed on human diseases. --Malkinann (talk) 02:31, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Epigenetics
Ujvari et al. recently published results indicating that an early hypomethylation event in DFT continues 16 years later, and could be "evolving it towards a more aggressive form with higher proliferative potential". Kdarwish1 (talk) 22:04, 13 November 2012 (UTC)kdarwish1

Owen and Pemberton citations - how to deal with them?
Five of the citations in this article are to "Owen and Pemberton" but the references section does not say what this actually refers to. That is, the citations refer to what is therefore effectively an unknown source.

I did some searching, which leads me to think that these citations refer to a book (available in print and as an ebook):

Owen, David & Pemberton, David "Tasmanian Devil : A unique and threatened animal" Sydney : Allen & Unwin,c2011 9781742376301

My problem is, I don't know whether the page numbers listed refer to the print or e-book, so can't insert the reference.

Furthermore, it is doubtful that this is a secondary source. It is a popular science book for the general public: one author is a fiction writer and the other a curator of a museum (not a science museum, so therefore probably not a scientist). So I am asking if this work should be cited at all - there are plenty of other sources.

What to do? Marchino61 (talk) 02:51, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
 * ✅ Taken care of, and relative to the other issues of the article, the short citations and the work cited appearance are good enough. Le Prof 73.210.155.96 (talk) 03:17, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

Discrepancy
This article states that besides DFTD, they are two other known transmissible cancers. The article about Canine transmissible venereal tumor states that CTVD is one of four known transmissible cancers. Now what is correct? Three or four? DugySK (talk) 17:32, 7 August 2015 (UTC)


 * The Wikipedia article Clonally transmissible cancer suggests four. But Wikipedia can't be sued to source Wikipedia.ZayZayEM (talk) 23:34, 8 August 2015 (UTC)
 * This already raised above, see § Number of related transmissible cancers, where it is a WP:OR rather than source-driven analysis (which has made its way into the article). Tags added today to get this resolved, once and for all. Le Prof 73.210.155.96 (talk) 04:06, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

Bad Sentence
The following sentence is gramatically bad. "In fact, it has been identified up to 21 different subclones by analyzing the genome (mitochondrial and nuclear) of 104 tumours from different Tasmanian devils.[17]" I am going to change it to "21 different subtypes have been identified by analyzing the genomes (mitochondrial and nuclear) of 104 tumors from different Tasmanian devils." Retaining the footnote. 7802mark (talk) 00:14, 27 September 2015 (UTC)
 * good change, just used wrng spelling of tumour for this page --ZayZayEM (talk) 20:51, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

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Edits of this date
Will expand this section further, soon, but the issues are made clear with the call for the expert, and address the longstanding discrepancy in the reported number of related transmissible cancers, and the fact that the same matters are discussed repeatedly in different sections (and stray material is inserted inappropriately, throughout), which I tried to rectify today to some extent. One solution, to move material unrelated to § Preservation response, to a new section, § Ongoing research, may help, but an expert is needed to decide what should and should not appear there, and in other sections (and what if any material should be repeated, or referred to with limted "see also" statements).

But the biggest single problem—as annoying as URL-only sources can be, this is cosmetic relative to the real issue, which—is the article seems to have been written neat to entirely from news reports, rather than reviews and book chapters. This may have been fine in 2007-2009. But a decade later, this makes for poor encyclopedic writing. This issue is all the more stark in the several places where "firsts" are reported, citing the primary source (author claiming to be the first). This is not my area, and benefit of the doubt leads me to leave all but the most egregious edits in the article (look to <!-- markup for a statement of 99.9% effected individuals, that appeared with no citation, etc.). But an expert is clearly needed to go to the review literature, and separate fact from fiction here. Le Prof 04:16, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

Propose changing this to a medium-importance article
If things are as dire as news reports indicate—absent good sources here, that is all we have—then a species threatening disease, and another example of a rare allograft cancer, is more notable than low importance. Le Prof 73.210.155.96 (talk) 04:19, 23 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Criteria for assessing importance for veterinary medicine-related articles are here: Instuctions for importance assessments. The importance rating represents the probability that the average reader of Wikipedia will look up the topic. This disease is limited to a single country and species, and although it is very important to Tasmanian devils and people interested in conservation, it is likely of low importance to average readers, compared to other pages in WikiProject Veterinary medicine. DferDaisy (talk) 02:10, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

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Society and culture better name
I don't find "Society and culture" an appropiate title section for that part of the article, because it doesn't match the content. Can any English native fix it? Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jakeukalane (talk • contribs) 22:03, 8 October 2019 (UTC)


 * Perhaps "In captivity" 84.71.61.234 (talk) 14:46, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

Devils reintroduced to Australian mainland
Happened about 1-2 weeks ago. I think I read it in a WWF email. Here is a link to another website, saying similar: https://www.greengeeks.com/blog/tasmanian-devil-reintroduced-australia/

Could Gedium account please be unblocked. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 101.98.111.217 (talk) 01:41, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

December 2020 Science paper
Should be mentioned: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/370/6522/eabb9772

Press coverage: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/dec/12/amazing-evolutionary-response-tasmanian-devil-gains-edge-in-battle-with-devastating-facial-cancer Zazpot (talk) 04:02, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

non-viral or not?
First sentence of article: "non-viral",

but in section "Pathology": ".a study found evidence for an infiectous agent resembling a giant virus that was capible of turning heathy cells into cancer cells. It was found to be a huge retrovirus with similar viruses being found in human and canine cancer cells." ---> ?

94.134.203.232 (talk) 07:28, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

"DFTS" listed at Redirects for discussion
The redirect [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=DFTS&redirect=no DFTS] has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at  until a consensus is reached. Rusalkii (talk) 01:21, 19 March 2024 (UTC)