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Ninety-three p.c of sufferers with a brand new most cancers analysis had been uncovered to at the least one sort of misinformation about most cancers therapies, a UF Well being Most cancers Heart research has discovered.
Most sufferers encountered misinformation—outlined as unproven or disproven most cancers therapies and myths or misconceptions—even once they weren’t in search of it.
The paper is revealed within the Journal of Most cancers Schooling.
The findings have main implications for most cancers remedy decision-making. Particularly, medical doctors ought to assume the affected person has seen or heard misinformation.
“Clinicians should assume when their patients are coming to them for a treatment discussion that they have been exposed to different types of information about cancer treatment, whether or not they went online and looked it up themselves,” stated senior creator Carma Bylund, Ph.D., a professor and affiliate chair of training within the UF Division of Well being Outcomes and Biomedical Informatics. “One way or another, people are being exposed to a lot of misinformation.”
Working with oncologists, Bylund and research first creator Naomi Parker, Ph.D., an assistant scientist within the UF Division of Well being Outcomes and Biomedical Informatics, are piloting an “information prescription” to steer sufferers to sources of evidence-based data just like the American Most cancers Society. The research paves the best way for different related methods.
Most notably, the research discovered the commonest manner sufferers had been uncovered to misinformation was secondhand.
“Your algorithms pick up on your diagnosis, your friends and family pick up on it, and then you’re on Facebook and you become exposed to this media,” Parker stated. “You’re not necessarily seeking out if vitamin C may be a cure for cancer, but you start being fed that content.”
And no, vitamin C doesn’t remedy most cancers.
Well being misinformation can forestall individuals from getting remedy that has proof behind it, negatively have an effect on relationships between sufferers and physicians, and improve the chance of dying, analysis has proven. Folks with most cancers are notably weak to misinformation due to the nervousness and worry that comes with a severe analysis, to not point out the overwhelming quantity of latest data they should out of the blue take up.
Whereas previous analysis has studied misinformation by going on to the supply—as an example, finding out what share of content material on a platform like TikTok is nonsense—little analysis has checked out its prevalence or the way it impacts individuals.
The group first developed a method to establish the proportion of most cancers sufferers uncovered to misinformation. UF researchers collaborated with Skyler Johnson, M.D., at Huntsman Most cancers Institute, an internationally recognized researcher within the area.
The survey questions had been based mostly on 5 classes of unproven or disproven most cancers therapies—nutritional vitamins and minerals, herbs and dietary supplements, particular diets, mind-body interventions and miscellaneous therapies—and remedy misconceptions. The myths and misconceptions had been tailored from Nationwide Most cancers Institute supplies and included statements like “Will eating sugar make my cancer worse?”
The group surveyed 110 UF Well being sufferers identified with prostate, breast, colorectal or lung most cancers throughout the previous six months, a time when sufferers sometimes make preliminary remedy selections.
The findings mark a shift in misinformation analysis, with main implications for the doctor-patient relationship, stated Bylund, a member of the Most cancers Management and Inhabitants Sciences analysis program on the UF Well being Most cancers Heart.
“I still think media and the internet are the source and why misinformation can spread so rapidly, but it might come to a cancer patient interpersonally, from family or friends,” she stated.
Most sufferers hardly ever mentioned the potential most cancers therapies they’d heard about with an oncologist, the research additionally discovered.
Subsequent, the researchers plan to survey a wider pool of sufferers, then research the outcomes of interventions designed to lower misinformation publicity, like the knowledge prescription.
Extra data:
Naomi D. Parker et al, Assessing Most cancers Sufferers’ Publicity to Therapy Misinformation, Journal of Most cancers Schooling (2025). DOI: 10.1007/s13187-025-02712-0
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College of Florida
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Most most cancers sufferers are uncovered to misinformation: Researchers pilot method to steer them to info (2025, September 24)
retrieved 25 September 2025
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