Cancer is rarely out of the media spotlight, but for cancer scientists and research organisations this can be a double-edged sword. From dubious 'breakthroughs' to hysterical campaigns, many feel that cancer coverage sometimes just isn't good enough. A recent conference held at the British Library posed the question, is cancer research 'lost in translation'?

The conference was organised by the National Cancer Research Institute (NCRI) Informatics Initiative, in partnership with the British Library. Its aim was to explore and address some of the problems of communicating cancer research, both within the research community and between scientists and the media.

Even before cancer research hits the headlines, it can face communication problems. Researchers need to communicate effectively amongst themselves and with regulators and the NHS as part of the process of making a new treatment available. Speakers were keen that patients should understand the importance of clinical trials, and that patient data should accessible to everyone, researchers and the public alike. The challenges of making evidence-based policy decisions were also discussed.

Dr Ben Goldacre (no stranger to bad science) then addressed the question of cancer coverage in the media, asking 'can we improve it?'. He began by pointing out how media coverage can affect the public’s behaviour – for example, news of Jade Goody’s diagnosis of cervical cancer gave a huge boost to the numbers of women attending cervical screening.

But he went on to explain that this power isn’t always put to the best use. In March 2009, two large studies into prostate cancer screening were published in the New England Journal of Medicine. One found that screening reduced deaths, the other that it didn’t. UK coverage of this news concentrated only on the first study – with calls for a national NHS screening programme – but coverage elsewhere in the world reported the latter. For Dr Goldacre this was more proof that the media don’t give the best coverage to the best quality evidence, and prefer controversy to balanced reporting.

Returning to his original question of what can be done to improve the situation, Dr Goldacre advised the audience to engage with the media and complain if they were unhappy with coverage of their work. If all else failed, he said, ‘get your stuff out there unadulterated’, on a website or blog. Many research organisations are already doing just that.

 

 
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