One of the biggest and most informative sites on the Internet, Wikipedia, is a well known online encyclopedia, that has over the time has acquired the title of not being highly accurate, due to the fact that, the articles written in the site are contributed from various volunteers. However, when it comes to medical research or more specifically, cancer related articles, researchers from the Kimmel Cancer Center at Jefferson have found Wikipedia to be remarkably accurate, even though it might become a lot boring to read.

As per the latest study conducted by the Kimmel Cancer Center, that was revealed at the Annual Meeting in Chicago, that the data collected and published on Wikipedia in regards to cancer research was of the same quality as that of the patient-oriented section of the National Cancer Institute’s Physician Data Query. The study was conducted under the supervision of Dr.Yaacov Lawrence, who is an assistant professor of Radiation Oncology at Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University. During the study, Dr. Lawrence and medical student Malolan Rajagopalan, chose ten different types of cancer and also collected textbook statements about these ten topics, that included epidemiology, etiology, symptoms, diagnosis, treatment and controversial topics.

Then these accumulated statements were weighed against the articles published on Physician Data Query (PDQ) and Wikipedia and it was found that, the error margin between both these websites was exceptionally low. However, it was observed that, while the PDQ content was written in more a understandable English for the non-medical oriented students, Wikipedia on the other hand extensively complex language and medical jargons.

Via Live Science & PhysOrg