About 30 percent of cancer-related content on social media, including YouTube, is misinformation not verified medically, a recent study showed.

A research team, led by Professor Kwon Jeong-hye of the Hemato-oncology Department at Chungnam National University Sejong Hospital, said Monday that it published a study, "Understanding the Social Mechanism of Cancer Misinformation Spread on YouTube and Lessons Learned: Infodemiological Study", in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (JMIR).

To grasp the spreading structure of cancer-related information on YouTube, the researchers selected 702 YouTube video clips (227 channels) related to the self-prescription of fenbendazole, an anthelmintic used against parasites in animals. Afterward, they extracted 90 videos (excluding overlapping recommendations) uploaded from September 2019 to September 2020, recorded 50,000 or more views, and analyzed the data.

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