• Karim ReFaey, Shashwat Tripathi, Angela M Bohnen, Mark R Waddle, Jennifer Peterson, Carla Vazquez-Ramos, Celine M Bondoc, Alfredo Quiñones-Hinojosa, and Daniel M Trifiletti.
• Department of Neurologic Surgery, Mayo Clinic, Jacksonville, Florida, USA.
• World Neurosurg. 2019 May 1; 125: e398-e402.

BackgroundGamma Knife radiosurgery was introduced in the 1960s and is currently used worldwide. The internet has become a foremost source of information used by patients and their families. In this study, we aim to evaluate the accuracy and reliability of the Gamma Knife radiosurgery-related YouTube videos.MethodsWe searched YouTube and the first 3 pages sorted according to "Relevance-Based Ranking" were included for analysis. Four independent health care workers from different disciplines evaluated the videos using the validated DISCERN tool.ResultsOur search resulted in 65,774 videos, and 14 videos met inclusion criteria. Our study found that 50% (7 of 14) of the videos were uploaded by university-affiliated hospitals; 14% of videos scored 3. The search term "Radiosurgery for intraaxial brain lesions" had the highest percentage of moderate videos (DISCERN = 3) (50%).ConclusionsPatients and caregivers turn to online sources to gather information about the disease. However, the available YouTube published videos are published without proper academic monitoring, as in such a free platform, published videos tend to catch a general audience for different purposes, which leads to diminishing quality control. Academic medical institutions should consider a proper monitoring process for videos to improve the accuracy of the published information for the patients.Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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