# Living plain-language evidence summaries for every common cancer question in 20 languages

Source: https://onco.cc/ideas/idea-moon-living-plain-evidence-summaries/  
OnCo record `idea-moon-living-plain-evidence-summaries` (Idea). Data CC BY-NC 4.0, attribute "Data from OnCo (onco.cc)"; commercial use needs a licence.

## TL;DR

For each question patients actually ask, keep a short, current, sourced answer in plain words, updated as evidence changes and available in the languages people speak.

## Summary

Trustworthy information exists (NCI PDQ, Cancer Research UK, Cochrane plain summaries) but is fragmented, slow to update and mostly English. The proposal is a living library: a defined set of the several thousand most-asked questions, each with a plain answer drafted with language-model assistance from guidelines and systematic reviews, reviewed and signed by named experts, versioned, translated and re-checked on a schedule, with open licensing so clinics, platforms and assistants can embed it.

## Fields

- Kind: Idea
- Last checked: 2026-09-08
- Hypothesis: The library becomes the most-cited source in assistant answers and platform labels for cancer questions and reduces measured misinformation belief in populations exposed to it.
- Rationale: Misinformation fills the vacuum left by absent, outdated or unreadable good information; the marginal cost of maintaining answers has fallen with drafting tools while expert review keeps quality.
- Proposed test: Build 1,000 questions in five languages; measure usage, citation in assistant outputs, and knowledge in surveyed patients versus controls.
- Maturity: early-clinical
- Actor: data

## Sources

- Bottleneck evidence (Misinformation and unproven therapies): Johnson et al., Cancer misinformation and harmful information on Facebook and other social media (JNCI 2022): https://doi.org/10.1093/jnci/djab141

## Connected records

- institutions: [Cancer Research UK](https://onco.cc/institutions/cruk/), [National Cancer Institute (NIH)](https://onco.cc/institutions/nci/)
- bottlenecks: [Knowledge reaches practice too slowly](https://onco.cc/bottlenecks/b-knowledge-diffusion/), [Misinformation and unproven therapies](https://onco.cc/bottlenecks/b-misinformation/)
- key papers: [Cancer Misinformation and Harmful Information on Facebook and Other Social Media: A Brief Report](https://onco.cc/key-papers/paper-johnson-j-natl-cancer-inst/)

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