While searching in BMJ Publishing's database, Clinical Evidence, I came across a spelling error of a drug name. Under the entry CHOP 21, a chemotherapy regimen used in treating non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, a drug named rituximab is mentioned under the 'Summary' section of this entry. In this paragraph rituximab is misspelled as 'rutuximab.' I had come across the drug elsewhere and was curious to see if there were two drugs with very similar names. I checked the MeSH database, e-CPS, EMBASE and STAT!Ref and found no entry anywhere for 'rutuximab.' However, if you 'Google' 'rutuximab' --- which was my first instinct--- you will get, as of this date, about 141 hits. Of course, if you search under the correct spelling, 'rituximab,' you will get about 958,000 hits.
It is interesting to see how errors can so easily proliferate on the Internet. And, as well, it is a cautionary reminder of how we must be attuned to detail, especially in such a field as medicine.
Fortunately, Clinical Evidence has the drug name spelled correctly where it counts, under the entry that specifically discusses the drug, CHOP 21 plus rituximab. I emailed them about the error but have not heard back from them.
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2 comments:
You might want to check this site out:
typo of the day. Apparently running a search of these words in your catalog can be a painful experience.
Christina
I've been thinking about the assertion that users need guidance when choosing information sources from the internet, since there's so much of it, and so much of it is bad etc. So I did some Google searches for prostate cancer, crohn's disease, and even 'child throw up'. I have to say, the first page of results were pretty good...Medline Plus, BC Cancer Agency etc. Then I did the same search spelling everything wrong: prostrate cancer, crone's disease, etc. and got some pretty strange results (there's a prostratecancer.org) although not as bad as you might think. We need to remind our users that search results are better when you spell correckly.
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