Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Alternate Asphygmo-Pyramidal Syndrome

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The Alternate Asphygmo-Pyramidal Syndrome was proposed for deletion. This page is an archive of the discussion about the proposed deletion. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page rather than here so that this page is preserved as an historic record. The result of the debate was DELETE

From Cleanup: The Alternate Asphygmo-Pyramidal Syndrome - 2 Google hits (moved from Cleanup by SimonP)

  • If memory serves, this may have been deleted once before. I'm no doctor, but if this is nonsense disguised as fact, get it out of here. - Lucky 6.9 17:36, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)
  • History of recalcitrant author, I think, Lucky. Novel "syndrome." Carotid occlusion, the basic anatomy, all are fine. It's the "alternate" and the "syndrome" that are questionable. We can't be presenting novelty medicine as fact, here. If nothing else, if no substantial medical authorities can confirm this, we have to, I think, take an inherently conservative and skeptical approach and delete. Geogre 00:58, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)
    • I agree. In my opinion, medical practices that have undergone neither rigorous clinical tests nor peer review through medical journals do not deserve article space here — just because we're not a source of medical advice doesn't mean we shouldn't have credibility — but I'll openly admit that's not a NPOV. Please delete that incomprehensible article. --Ardonik 04:27, Jul 16, 2004 (UTC)
  • And what's with the image of the alien? Delete. Exploding Boy 01:43, Jul 16, 2004 (UTC)
  • Good luck. I got flack from the author for daring to list it on Cleanup because, according to him, he is THE expert in the field and this article is perfect. Delete. RickK 04:34, Jul 16, 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete. No evidence that it's encyclopedic. I can't tell whether this is incoherent rubbish or just esoteric, but it's quite useless to us as is. My guess is it's text randomly cut and pasted from a legitimate medical article, but IANAD, it may be all accurate for all I know. If cleanup has been tried and can't improve on this, we just need to get rid of it. I guess we'd better have a look at Lateral medullary syndrome and Excellsior's other edits as well. Andrewa 18:08, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)
    • Comment: Lateral medullary syndrome appears to be on the level, although the page needs a major rewrite and I'm learning heaps just finding out what the words mean. Perhaps WikiProject Mathematics should adopt this guy as our mascot, I'm sure we do as badly at times. But I can't save the TAAPS article even if it's on the level too, so no change of vote. Andrewa 18:44, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)
      • KEEP!!! If we didn't have medical articles like this, what medical articles are we not going to keep? I understand that the article is a bit wordy and might not seem worthy at this point, but this article definitely has to stay. Why not delete Trifascicular heart block as well? Please, people, wikipedia can become an incredible encyclopedia with in-depth medical articles too. KEEP! --G3pro 16 July 2004
        • Comment: No point shouting. If you understand the article and consider it salvageable, then please edit it and make it intelligible to the rest of us. This doesn't mean removing all technical jargon, but it does mean at least having an introduction that's a bit more layman-friendly. Say concisely what the article is describing. Have a go. Andrewa 03:38, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)
    • Can you confirm this article's legitimacy? I understood the carotid occlusion, the asphygmo-pyramidal circuit. However, any time I attempted to find information on the syndrome, and particularly on the two authorities given for describing it, I got zippo. We either need peer review or extensive references to allow non-peers to vet. If you can vouch for this article, can you point to references so that we can be sure? A wiki-encyclopedia suffers from real shortcomings in specialist areas: we must have other specialists seeing these particular essays, or we need huge reference books. Geogre 02:46, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)
  • Comment: Above user has a history of questionable edits and has reverted a speedy delete nomination on an article of his called Weep em man it's america. It's a neologism with exactly one Google hit. - Lucky 6.9 02:45, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)
  • I can't vouch for this article in particular with web references, but this syndrome is featured in "Principles of Internal Medicine" and "Physician's Desk Reference." I would tend to say "keep" on medical articles such as this, but I'll throw this up to you guys now. The article is just too wordy and doesn't cross-reference any other wiki articles. I'm a student of medicine, but this syndrome might be too obscure for the general wiki population. I now abstain my vote. (BTW, my "Weep em man it's America" was a phrase in common usage among the military population.) --G3pro July 17th 2004
    • Comment: If it hits the PDR, we've got a starting point for confirmation, anyway. I don't have one nearby, but I feel confident that there are others who do. The condition is a differential diagnostic, isn't it? I mean this article is describing how to make the differential, isn't it? If so, it may be inappopriate more on the instructional grounds than on error of information. No change of vote yet, but interested. Geogre 17:15, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Here is the answer I think: Psychiatr Neurol (Basel). 1962;144:137-55. Related Articles, Links The alternate asphymo-pyramidal syndrome. A contribution to diagnosis and classification of carotid thromboses. FRADIS A, PETROVICI I.

The citation is from medline, from a relatively obscure and very old neurology journal. I am guessing from the title that it is the article that proposed this as a new syndrome. So why is this the only hit? Possible reasons include (1) it's really rare-- I doubt this; (2) it has become known by a different name; (3) it turned out not to be a distinct enough or correctly described phenomenon (i.e., it was basically never substantiated). I am suspicious of 2 or 3.

Notice that the author is the same I Petrovici this author wrote an article about. I would wonder if User:Excellsior is A Fradis writing about a 1962 publication of his own with Petrovici. If Petrovici stayed in academic medicine, I expect he has published more important things than this. On the other hand, Fradis may not have had an academic career and this was his published claim to fame. (Or if you want an alternative theory based on the recycling of familiar users, what Romanian doctor do we know who pushes his own obscure research-that-came-to-nothing here?) As I've written some pretty obscure medical stuff here, and cannot believe what a high proportion of our articles are about cartoon shows of the illiterati, I tend to be tolerant of medical esoterica. My only hesitation is that I wouldn't be surprised if the phenomenon was unconfirmed or renamed. I would like to challenge the author to give us the background. If he can point to a mention in a more recent medical textbook or journal article I would immediately accept this article. If he can give a current name for the syndrome, I would accept it with a redirect so that both names are used. If he won't respond, I would be suspicious that the original article and this one are dross.

Is everyone ok with this? Alteripse 23:23, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)

    • Comment: For what it's worth, when I went to confirm that this was ok, I went to Highwire (www.highwire.org) to search current acad. med. lit. I got zero there. That's what made me very suspicious of the "syndrome." The anatomy wasn't a problem, as I said, but the idea that this was a syndrome that seemed to have no one currently researching it or reporting on it. Geogre 01:20, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)
    • I left a message on the talk page of the article welcoming the contributor and asking him to contact us. I tried to leave a similar note on the blank user page for Excellsior but it wouldnt save for me. The syndrome was reported by one of the article subjects of this contributor (who would be 75). I still have a hunch Excellsior might be Dr Fradas; no one would write this article complete with diagram without a personal motivation. That would be ok with me as long as it didn't get debunked or replaced with a more universal name. Let's give him a few days to respond. Alteripse 01:46, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete, unverifiable, unreadable, and quite possibly nonsense. -- Cyrius|✎ 02:25, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)
  • You can't be serious! OK, you get that a lot. Aren't you satisfied that I dug up the original medical article in a real medical journal from 1962?. Let's give the author a little time to respond. It might still be salvageable. Alteripse 02:53, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete. I'm all in favor of in-depth medical knowledge in the Wikipedia, but 40 years and nothing more was ever written about it? It also reads like it came verbatim from a medical journal. Alteripse, could you provide a link to the Medline citation? I searched Medline for 1960 to present, using "The Alternate Asphygmo-Pyramidal Syndrome // FRADIS A, PETROVICI I // PSYCHIATR NEUROL (BASEL) ;SWITZERLAND" and every variation I could think of. Zero hits for every combination I tried. G3pro, could you provide a link or specific hard-copy reference for this being featured in the PDR? I was under the impression that the PDR dealt only with medications and a very few medication-related devices, not syndromes. Until the article can be verified, and verified as non-copyvio, I have to vote delete. SWAdair | Talk 06:20, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)

The medline citation is exactly as I pasted in above. I should have rearranged the spacing to make it clearer:

The alternate asphygmo-pyramidal syndrome. A contribution to diagnosis and classification of carotid thromboses.
FRADIS A, PETROVICI I. Psychiatr Neurol (Basel). 1962;144:137-55.

Anyway, I confess that I am now pleading for a delay of execution out of curiostiy about whether my surmises above are correct. I am hoping Dr. Fradis will come forward and claim his article. I would then be willing to help make it intelligible because I admit that between the Romanian English and the esoteric subject matter, it's hard to follow. If we can't get a defense and an improvement, I will yield to the wishes of the community and avert my eyes while one of you puts it out of its misery. Alteripse 12:59, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)

  • Keep. Cleanup. --[[User:OldakQuill|Oldak Quill]] 18:26, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)

This page is now preserved as an archive of the debate and, like other '/delete' pages is no longer 'live'. Subsequent comments on the issue, the deletion or on the decision-making process should be placed on the relevant 'live' pages. Please do not edit this page.

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