Accuracy of cancer information on the Internet: A comparison of a Wiki with a professionally maintained database (original) (raw)

The internet for medical information about cancer: help or hindrance?

Psychosomatics, 2003

The authors tested a strategy for screening Internet sites to identify those that provide scientifically accurate information regarding complementary/alternative medicine treatments commonly used by cancer patients. Method: Separate Internet searches were conducted for three complementary/alternative medicine treatments: floressence, amalaki, and selenium. Sites (N‫)491ס‬ were assessed according to four criteria: availability of online purchasing, inclusion of patient testimonials, description of the treatment as a "cancer cure," and description of the treatment as "having no side effects." The presence of any of these criteria was considered a "red flag" denoting questionable scientific accuracy of the site. Sites were categorized based on the number of red flags. MEDLINE searches were performed and peer-reviewed literature used to determine the scientific accuracy of sites. Results: Over 90% of the sites for floressence and amalaki had at least one red flag. In these searches, sites with no red flags provided some scientifically accurate information, while sites with red flags provided a large amount of vague and inaccurate information. Less than one-quarter of sites for selenium had at least one red flag, and sites in this search generally provided scientifically accurate information, regardless of the number of red flags. Conclusions: There is a staggering amount of medical misinformation on the Internet. For cancer treatments that have not been rigorously studied, the red flag criteria offer a rapid way of screening Internet sites for likely scientific accuracy. It may be advisable for patients to avoid sites with one or more red flags.

Journey in the oncological global village: the true, the almost true, the not true

European Journal of Oncology, 2014

Correlation between the mortality from cancer of the breast, prostate, lung, colon and pancreas and pro capite food consumption in Serbia, 1991-2010 / Correlazione tra la mortalità per cancro del seno, della prostata, del polmone, del colon e del pancreas e consumo alimentare pro capite in Serbia, 1991Serbia, -2010 M. Ilic, S. Vasiljevic, Z. Vlaisavljevic, S. Konevic

Readability of Cancer Information on the Internet

Journal of Cancer Education, 2004

Background. Literacy is considered an essential component of individuals' ability to increase control over their health. However, the majority of printed cancer information is written at readability levels of high school or higher and may be difficult to comprehend by people who are searching for medical information. Since low literacy is associated with poorer health and since a growing number of people are searching the Internet for health information, our research questions were twofold: (1) What is the readability level of popular Web sites on breast, colon, and prostate cancers? and (2) Does readability level differ as a function of the Web sites' organizational origin? Methods. Breast, colon, and prostate cancer Web sites were selected for analysis by comparing the first 100 hits of 10 popular search engines. A total of 55 Web sites on breast (n = 20), colorectal (n = 18), and prostate (n = 17) cancers were included in the final analysis and assessed for readability using SMOG, Flesch-Kincaid (F-K), and Flesch Reading Ease (FRE) measures. Results. The overall mean reading level of the cancer Web sites was Grade 13.7 using the SMOG formula and Grade 10.9 according to F-K. The mean FRE score was 41.6. The majority of Web sites (63.6%) were written at college level (Grade 13+) according to SMOG, especially those with a domain of ".com" and ".org." Breast cancer sites were written at easier reading grade levels than sites on prostate cancer and colorectal cancer. Breast cancer sites also showed the largest increase in reading difficulty between opening and concluding paragraphs of text. Conclusions. Readability of cancer information on the Internet is at a college level. Individuals with basic literacy skills must be considered when posting cancer information on the Internet. Otherwise this information will remain inaccessible to a segment of the population who is at risk for cancer.

Relative Quality of Internet-Derived Gastrointestinal Cancer Information

Journal of Cancer Education, 2012

Internet-derived health care information is increasingly accessed by patients, yet its quality and accuracy is variable and unregulated. The aim of this study was to assess the information available regarding common gastrointestinal cancers via three internet search engines (Google, Yahoo and Bing). The top 30 websites for each of the terms: oesophageal, gastric, pancreatic, colon and rectal cancer were evaluated (University of Michigan Consumer Health Website Checklist) and scored [−80 (poor) to 90 (excellent)]. The median score was 53 (−7 to 81) and was significantly higher for oesophageal (61) and pancreatic (65) cancer websites, compared with gastric (49), colon (48) and rectal cancer (50) (p00.014). Median scores related to charitable organisations were significantly better than academic, commercial, news agency, care provider, layperson and medical information websites collectively (79 vs. 42, p<0.0001). Overall quality of internet-derived gastrointestinal cancer information remains poor and patients and clinicians should be aware.

Supporting Cancer Knowledge Needs Using Online Information

Cancer Concepts: A Guidebook for the Non-Oncologist

Healthcare providers require quality, credible, evidence-based information for their oncologic knowledge needs. 2. An understanding of health information literacy is necessary to access and identify websites or databases containing reliable, freely available medical information. 3. There are many free, credible, publicly available resources provided by government departments and health organizations. 4. The National Library of Medicine (NLM) offers services and biomedical electronic information resources searchable by people around the globe. 5. A well-designed clinical question strengthens the search strategy by efficiently retrieving relevant, topic-specific results. 6. Use of search techniques and PubMed tools, such as MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) and My NCBI (National Center for Biotechnology Information), improve search results and support the research process. 7. "Open access" is free, unrestricted, online access to scientific and scholarly research.

Assessing the internet prevalence of cancer

International Journal of Clinical Practice, 2011

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