Introduction: Press releases (PRs) on medical research are commonly used by academic medical centers to present their research to public audiences. PRs are often written by public relations teams who lack formal scientific training and aim to generate publicity rather than accurately present research. To the authors’ knowledge, PRs on neurosurgery have yet to be assessed for their level of credibility.
Methods: We identified PRs from Eureka Alert from October 2023 - October 2024 using the search term <”Neurosurgery”> to gather the 100 most recent PRs at the time of this study. PRs about peer-reviewed research that were at least 200 words were included. Each PR’s data was collected by a single reviewer. Criteria on what is considered misleading was determined by the authors prior to data collection.
Results: The specialties of the PRs reviewed were 34% functional, 14% brain tumor, 9% vascular, 6% pediatrics, 6% CSF-related, 6% spine, 5% degenerative, 3% psychiatric, 3% peripheral nerve, 2% trauma, and 12% other. 49% of titles were misleading, 38% of articles contained misleading reporting, 69% did not mention study limitations, and 21% were about animal or in vitro studies, 52% of which extrapolated claims about humans. 93% of articles contained a quote from an author, and 22% of these were misleading or taken out of context.
Conclusion : PRs may intentionally or unintentionally misrepresent scientific research for the sake of generating publicity. Many patients may rely on these PRs for a simplified summary of the study. Misleading PRs could give patients and their families false hope and/or cause patients to make adverse decisions about their health. We hope that these results will inspire the release of more accurate neurosurgery PRs in the future.
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