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A cross sectional review of patient information available in the World Wide Web on CyberKnife: fallacies and pitfalls

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to assess the quality of videos available in YouTube on CyberKnife.

Methods

The term “CyberKnife” was input into the search window of www.youtube.com on a specific date and the first 50 videos were assessed for technical and content issues. The data was tabulated and analysed.

Results

The search yielded 32,300 videos in 0.33 s. Among the first 50 analysed, most were professional videos, mostly on CyberKnife in general and for brain tumours. Most of the videos did not mention anything about patient selection or lesion size. The other technical details were covered by most although they seemed muffled by the animations. Many patient videos were recordings of one entire treatment, thus giving future patients an insight on what to expect. Almost half the videos projected glorified views about the treatment technique.

Conclusions

The company videos were reasonably accurate and well presented as were many institutional videos, although there was a tendency to gloss over a few points. The glorification of the treatment technique was a disturbing finding. The profound trust of the patients on the health care system is humbling.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are indebted to the “Information Revolution” that has made this project feasible.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Radiation Oncology, Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Kochi, Kerala, India

    Durgapoorna Menon, Prameela G. Chelakkot, Devika Sunil & Ashwini Lakshmaiah

Authors
  1. Durgapoorna Menon
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  2. Prameela G. Chelakkot
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  3. Devika Sunil
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  4. Ashwini Lakshmaiah
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Durgapoorna Menon.

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None of the authors have any conflicts of interests to declare.

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Menon, D., Chelakkot, P.G., Sunil, D. et al. A cross sectional review of patient information available in the World Wide Web on CyberKnife: fallacies and pitfalls. Support Care Cancer 25, 3769–3773 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00520-017-3807-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00520-017-3807-4

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