Medical Information Online: The Health of the Data Isn’t
Always Robust
Michigan Researcher Sybil Biermann’s Hope: Web Surfers
Will Learn the Meaning of “Peer Review”
Patients
who search the Internet for advice on treating health problems
may be getting information that is inaccurate, inappropriate,
misleading or that has not been reviewed by physicians, according
to a study by J. Sybil Biermann, M.D., assistant professor of
surgery, and her fellow researchers at the Medical School. One
of the first of its kind to be published, the study statistically
examined a sample of pages retrieved when four Internet search
engines sought information on Ewing’s sarcoma, a rare and
often fatal form of malignant bone cancer that occurs mostly
in children and teen-agers. The uncommon disease was chosen
to keep the search results manageable.
Of the 400 pages evaluated in the study, nearly 60 percent
had peer-reviewed information from the National Cancer Institute
or other reliable sources. The rest contained treatment information
that apparently had not been subject to scientific scrutiny.
But, as Biermann and her team wrote in the August, 1999, issue
of Cancer in the journal’s lead article, their finding
doesn’t mean that Internet users should stop looking for
health information—or that doctors should dismiss the data
their patients find. Rather, they say, the results should encourage
physicians to discuss such information with their patients,
and to steer them toward trustworthy sites. “In the meantime,”
says Biermann, “the best advice for the public is, ‘Consider
the source.’”
Patients
who search the Internet for advice on treating health problems
may be getting information that is inaccurate, inappropriate,
misleading or that has not been reviewed by physicians, according
to a study by J. Sybil Biermann, M.D., assistant professor of
surgery, and her fellow researchers at the Medical School. One
of the first of its kind to be published, the study statistically
examined a sample of pages retrieved when four Internet search
engines sought information on Ewing’s sarcoma, a rare and
often fatal form of malignant bone cancer that occurs mostly
in children and teen-agers. The uncommon disease was chosen
to keep the search results manageable.
