The portrayal of bone tumours in the press

The media are pivotal in educating and informing the general public. The stories they cover and how they cover them has a powerful influence on public perceptions. There have been no previous reports of the portrayal of bone tumours in the press. LexisNexis™ Professional search engine used to retrieve articles from all United Kingdom National Newspapers over one year containing terms "bone tumour/bone tumour" and 46 other named bone and joint tumours from May 2009 to May 2010. A total of 253 relevant articles were found. Seven per cent solely bone tumour related, 41% main theme and 52% mentioned in passing. 52% mentioned tumour type. These were 51% multiple myeloma, 15% Ewing's sarcoma, 9% sarcoma unspecified, 6% clear cell sarcoma, 4.5% epithelial sarcoma, 4% synovial sarcoma, 3% osteosarcoma, 3% bony metastasis and 1.5% chondrosarcoma. Benign bone tumours not mentioned. Article focus: chemotherapy 17%, surgeon/doctor 7% and new surgical technique 2%. The overall attitudinal tone of the articles were 52% negative, 32% neutral and 16% positive. Only 13% quoted an oncologist, and 1% an orthopaedic surgeon. Quality of medical information provided was limited with 90% providing no meaningful medical information and this medical information being correct only 68% of the time. Articles with quotes from a doctor were significantly more likely to contain meaningful medical information than those without-33 versus 4%, respectively (p < 0.001 Chi-squared test)-and there was a trend for them to be more factually correct overall-68 versus 50% (p = 0.192 Fisher's exact Test).