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

Abstract

Aim: Internet has become the new gold standard, for most web users, when performing a screening on medical updates and/or therapies. The aim of this review is that of critically analyzing web contents highlighting the limits of a self-managed scientific culture which may induce the acceptance “as true” of wrong information. Materials and methods: We searched Pubmed/Medline using the terms “web”, “wrong information” and “tumors”. Results: Although provided with some scientific background, most of the oncological websites, blogs and videos (usually almost spread through Youtube) lack an Authority granting high level contents and quality; thus the patient and their relatives are at high risk of fall into the so called oncological “Web-Babel-Syndrome”, which arises consulting a great number of self referral websites without adequate medical knowledge and specific experience. Conclusions: A greater sensibilization of web users by the scientific community, to refer to medical data banks with the help of an expert or a pool of accredited professionists, would reduce both frustration and confusion generated by a “wild” approach to the medical web contents.