Dataset Information

Making sense of cancer risk calculators on the web.

ABSTRACT: OBJECTIVE: Cancer risk calculators on the internet have the potential to provide users with valuable information about their individual cancer risk. However, the lack of oversight of these sites raises concerns about low quality and inconsistent information. These concerns led us to evaluate internet cancer risk calculators. DESIGN: After a systematic search to find all cancer risk calculators on the internet, we reviewed the content of each site for information that users should seek to evaluate the quality of a website. We then examined the consistency of the breast cancer risk calculators by having 27 women complete 10 of the breast cancer risk calculators for themselves. We also completed the breast cancer risk calculators for a hypothetical high- and low-risk woman, and compared the output to Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results estimates for the average same-age and same-race woman. RESULTS: Nineteen sites were found, 13 of which calculate breast cancer risk. Most sites do not provide the information users need to evaluate the legitimacy of a website. The breast cancer calculator sites vary in the risk factors they assess to calculate breast cancer risk, how they operationalize each risk factor and in the risk estimate they provide for the same individual. CONCLUSIONS: Internet cancer risk calculators have the potential to provide a public health benefit by educating individuals about their risks and potentially encouraging preventive health behaviors. However, our evaluation of internet calculators revealed several problems that call into question the accuracy of the information that they provide. This may lead the users of these sites to make inappropriate medical decisions on the basis of misinformation.

SUBMITTER: Levy AG

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2359468 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Making sense of cancer risk calculators on the web.

Levy Andrea Gurmankin AG Sonnad Seema S SS Kurichi Jibby E JE Sherman Melani M Armstrong Katrina K

Journal of general internal medicine 20080111 3

<h4>Objective</h4>Cancer risk calculators on the internet have the potential to provide users with valuable information about their individual cancer risk. However, the lack of oversight of these sites raises concerns about low quality and inconsistent information. These concerns led us to evaluate internet cancer risk calculators.<h4>Design</h4>After a systematic search to find all cancer risk calculators on the internet, we reviewed the content of each site for information that users should se ...[more]

PMID: 18188653

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Project description:BackgroundClinical scores are frequently used in the diagnosis and management of stroke. While medical calculators are increasingly important support tools for clinical decisions, the uptake and use of common medical calculators for stroke remain poorly characterized.ObjectiveWe aimed to describe use patterns in frequently used stroke-related medical calculators for clinical decisions from a web-based support system.MethodsWe conducted a retrospective study of calculators from MDCalc, a web-based and mobile app-based medical calculator platform based in the United States. We analyzed metadata tags from MDCalc's calculator use data to identify all calculators related to stroke. Using relative page views as a measure of calculator use, we determined the 5 most frequently used stroke-related calculators between January 2016 and December 2018. For all 5 calculators, we determined cumulative and quarterly use, mode of access (eg, app or web browser), and both US and international distributions of use. We compared cumulative use in the 2016-2018 period with use from January 2011 to December 2015.ResultsOver the study period, we identified 454 MDCalc calculators, of which 48 (10.6%) were related to stroke. Of these, the 5 most frequently used calculators were the CHA2DS2-VASc score for atrial fibrillation stroke risk calculator (5.5% of total and 32% of stroke-related page views), the Mean Arterial Pressure calculator (2.4% of total and 14.0% of stroke-related page views), the HAS-BLED score for major bleeding risk (1.9% of total and 11.4% of stroke-related page views), the National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) score calculator (1.7% of total and 10.1% of stroke-related page views), and the CHADS2 score for atrial fibrillation stroke risk calculator (1.4% of total and 8.1% of stroke-related page views). Web browser was the most common mode of access, accounting for 82.7%-91.2% of individual stroke calculator page views. Access originated most frequently from the most populated regions within the United States. Internationally, use originated mostly from English-language countries. The NIHSS score calculator demonstrated the greatest increase in page views (238.1% increase) between the first and last quarters of the study period.ConclusionsThe most frequently used stroke calculators were the CHA2DS2-VASc, Mean Arterial Pressure, HAS-BLED, NIHSS, and CHADS2. These were mainly accessed by web browser, from English-speaking countries, and from highly populated areas. Further studies should investigate barriers to stroke calculator adoption and the effect of calculator use on the application of best practices in cerebrovascular disease.

Dataset Information

Making sense of cancer risk calculators on the web.

Publications

Making sense of cancer risk calculators on the web.

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