Shouldn't this text be a subheading under spleen until it becomes more complete? Alex.tan 15:21, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I'm not sure. It's beyond stub level and having it separate might encourage people to edit it more than they would if it was already part of a longer article. On the other hand, having it as part of spleen does make that article better. Whatever is done to this should probably be done to Tonsillectomy as well. Angela. 02:43, Feb 29, 2004 (UTC)
In science-fiction comic spoofs (brewster rockit for one, at least) a character yells, "Aaaah! My spleen!" when gutted by aliens. Should this be included in the article? 71.103.38.192 06:30, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I removed the doubt tag on the above, but reworded the doubted text to clearly indicate that this is very much a case of scientific conjecture. The reference NY Times article has the following text:
The findings raised the question of what happens to people who have their spleens removed. Dr. Faustman went to the medical literature and discovered that most spleens were removed in emergency rooms and that few patients were followed afterward, with two exceptions.
One was a group of patients in England with pancreatitis. To treat them, doctors had removed half of the pancreas. When they removed the right half of the organ, the patients were fine. But when they removed the left half, along with the attached spleen, patients often developed diabetes about five years later.
The other case involved children with beta thalassemia, a genetic disease involving iron storage. Often, they developed enlarged spleens, which were removed. Five years or so later, many got diabetes.
The article clearly makes reference to a perceived relationship between splenectomy and elevated diabetes risk. This does not imply, of course, that said relationship in fact exists.
* Provide source material updates (citations are old).
* Provide citations where missing.
* Recreate a more formal lead section.
* Reorganize the article to correspond to the structure provided by the lead section.
* Adjust the sections to follow standard medical encyclopedia formatting.
* Add information in all sections to ensure that a reader could master the entirety of the topic from studying this article.
* While the article is largely neutral in tone, it does occasionally provide persuasive language or phrasing.
* Prioritization will be given to surgical and other interventional management.
