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abstract
Introduction.
Media reporting of clinical trials impacts patient-oncologist interactions. We sought to characterize the accuracy of media
and Internet reporting of practice-changing clinical trials in oncology.
Materials and Methods.
The first media articles referencing 17
practice-changing clinical trials were collected from 4 media outlets:
newspapers,
cable news, cancer websites, and industry
websites. Measured outcomes were media reporting score, social media
score, and
academic citation score. The media reporting
score was a measure of completeness of information detailed in media
articles
as scored by a 15-point scoring instrument. The
social media score represented the ubiquity of social media presence
referencing
17 practice-changing clinical trials in cancer
as determined by the American Society of Clinical Oncology in its annual
report,
entitled Clinical Cancer Advances 2012; social
media score was calculated from Twitter, Facebook, and Google searches.
The
academic citation score comprised total
citations from Google Scholar plus the Scopus database, which
represented the academic
impact per clinical cancer advance.
Results.
From 170 media articles, 107 (63%) had
sufficient data for analysis. Cohen’s κ coefficient demonstrated
reliability of the
media reporting score instrument with a
coefficient of determination of 94%. Per the media reporting score,
information was
most complete from industry, followed by cancer
websites, newspapers, and cable news. The most commonly omitted items,
in
descending order, were study limitations,
exclusion criteria, conflict of interest, and other. The social media
score was
weakly correlated with academic citation score.
Conclusion.
Media outlets appear to have set a low
bar for coverage of many practice-changing advances in oncology, with
reports of scientific
breakthroughs often omitting basic study facts
and cautions, which may mislead the public. The media should be
encouraged
to use a standardized reporting template and
provide accessible references to original source information whenever
feasible.
Implications for Practice:
North American newspapers, cable news,
cancer websites, and industry websites were searched for their reporting
on 17 practice-changing
clinical trials in oncology as highlighted by
the American Society of Clinical Oncology in its 2012 annual report,
Clinical
Cancer Advances. Accuracy of reporting across
media platforms was evaluated, and the social media buzz and academic
interest
generated by each clinical trial was gauged. The
findings represent, to the authors’ knowledge, the first systematic
effort
to appraise the reporting of practice-changing
clinical trials in oncology across various media platforms. Use of a
standardized
reporting template by the media is proposed to
reduce flaws in their reporting of clinical trials to the public.
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