Talk:Orbital cellulitis

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 19 November 2018 and 14 December 2018. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Gjs200. Peer reviewers: MedicalEdits.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 05:48, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Work Plan
I chose orbital cellulitis because it is the topic of a research project I will be helping with this year-- an institutional review done on patient cases at MUSC. I thought I'd take the opportunity to learn more about orbital cellulitis itself. The Wikipedia entry for orbital cellulitis is currently a Class C entry. I've reviewed it, and I have some ideas to improve it in my work plan. At first glance, I noticed the "diagnosis" heading is empty-- I plan to start and contribute to that section with possibly adding a subheading based on physical exam findings. However, if I find that this may be too medical for the general public, I would not include it. I would like to include the modalities for diagnosis, such as brain/orbit MRI, CT scan, blood tests, etc.

I would also like to include epidemiological information as well as more information about the prognosis, which is currently very scarce in information. I also plan to cite all of my writing (there are currently no citations within the text). I would also like to start a risk factors (preventable vs non-preventable) section and possibly include information about primary prevention.

In summary, headers I'd like to focus on include: diagnosis, epidemiology, prognosis, risk factors, and prevention.

Hopefully there are some systematic reviews or literature reviews on PubMed with good information. I will also reach out to some of my mentors in ophthalmology to see if they know of any sources that may be useful, such as the Wills Eye manual. I will start by doing a brief review using UpToDate and MedScape to read the citations that are listed in those articles. I think that would give me a good foundation to start with. AccessMedicine will also be used to get broad information from textbooks along with Clinical Key; I will find sources by keyword search. I think an important point will be to include sources for both pediatric and adult populations. There are currently mostly pediatric sources listed on my page (due to higher prevalence in pediatrics).

I think it will be important to include articles that are the most up to date. Looking at what is currently referenced on the orbital cellulitis page, the most recent source is from 2006 with the oldest being from 1982. I think these should be updated to include sources from within the past 5 years. Because orbital cellulitis is a condition which warrants immediate treatment, I think it will be important to include more information about clinical signs, expand on the treatment options and find articles that indicate the success rates of the different options (outcomes). Currently, the page gives very little about prognosis and even indicates the course of the disease in the pre-antibiotic era based on a study from 1933, which I think is irrelevant to this day and age. I will probably delete this part of the article. The article is currently lacking inline and precise citations, which I plan on helping to fix.

I will embed other links as well as hopefully include radiographic image(s). For example, an image showing an abscess before and after treatment in the orbit may be applicable in the treatment section. I want to also include links to other articles that can be similar in pathology and clinical findings (differential diagnosis), such as orbital apex syndrome, nonspecific orbital inflammation, neoplasias, systemic disorders, endocrine disorders and preseptal cellulitis because it is important to know how each of these conditions are different from one another, and the embed tool makes it easy to link relevant articles. Many different causative organisms are responsible for causing orbital cellulitis, and the embedded links will allow quick access to pages about those organisms for curious readers. Currently, there are two causes of orbital cellulitis that are outlined on the page (staph aureus and strep pneumonia). The article does mention a third cause-- beta-hemolytic streptococci-- but fails to expand on it. I will include some information about these three organisms as well as research which others may be common as well.

I think a good way to avoid medical jargon would be to have family members and friends outside of medicine review the page, and if they give feedback that a certain area is too laden with medical terminology, then that would be a good time to review it to make changes. There are a few cases where some jargon may be necessary, though-- for example, "ophthalmoplegia" could be considered medical jargon, but it is an important clinical finding in orbital cellulitis. In order to make these kinds of words easier to understand, I will include a brief definition in parenthesis.

So, I think by expanding and elaborating on existing sections as well as introducing a handful of new sections based on information from high quality publications, I can help improve this page's ratings. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gjs200 (talk • contribs) 20:19, 19 November 2018 (UTC)