Abstract
BACKGROUND: Early detection along with improved locoregional and systemic therapies have decreased breast cancer mortality and allowed for the clinical implementation of breast conserving surgical options, in turn reducing the clinical and psychosocial impact of mastectomy. To what extend this has been successfully conveyed through social media for breast cancer awareness, has not been previously investigated.
METHODS: This study presents a content and social network cross-sectional descriptive study of Twitter and Google trends data worldwide from platform launch (2006 and 2004 respectively) until May 15th, 2022, in agreement with the STROBE guidelines. Tweets associated with the hashtags #Breastcancer, #Breastsurgery, #Oncoplasticsurgery, #Mastectomy, #Breastreconstruction, #Breastconservingsurgery were licensed and downloaded through the Vincitas and Tweetbinder online platforms. Associated available demographics, namely username, biography, location, date and language of post, were extracted from the Twitter dataset while interest percentage, location and language of search were extracted from the Google trends dataset.
RESULTS: A total of 390111 unique tweets were generated by 127284 unique users, with 2 users engaging with all six hashtags. Original tweets constituted on average 39.1% [Min 30.7% to max 47.2%] of the total. Hashtag frequency increased on Twitter for all six searches during October, the breast-cancer awareness month, but not on Google trends. Cancer survivors engaged much more often with the hashtag #Breastcancer and #Mastectomy, whereas #Breastsurgery, #Oncoplasticsurgery, #Breastconservingsurgery, #Breastreconstruction were mostly used by health professionals.
CONCLUSION: In this large qualitative and quantitative dataset, geo-temporal oscillations on Twitter and Google trends for hashtags relevant with breast cancer provide preliminary insights on information flow and user engagement. Understanding the effective use of social media platforms may provide the niche for disseminating evidence and promoting education on the surgical options of patients with breast cancer.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 716-723 |
| Number of pages | 7 |
| Journal | European Journal of Surgical Oncology |
| Volume | 49 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| Early online date | 18 Jan 2023 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Apr 2023 |
Bibliographical note
NHS Grampian Breast Cancer Endowment fund.CRediT authorship contribution statement
Stavroula L. Kastora: Study design, Data acquisition, Quality control of data and algorithms, Formal analysis, interpretation, Formal analysis, Manuscript preparation, Manuscript editing, Manuscript review. Andreas Karakatsanis: Conceptualization, Study design, Quality control of data and algorithms, Formal analysis, interpretation, Formal analysis, Manuscript editing, Manuscript review. Yazan A. Masannat: Conceptualization, Study design, Manuscript editing, Manuscript review.
Data Availability Statement
All data used in this study are publicly available through the sources referenced in the “Methods” section. The aggregated datasets analysed in this study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
Access to Document
- Kastora_etal_EJSO_Comprehending_the_Impact_VOR
0748-7983/© 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). European Journal of Surgical Oncology 49 (2023) 716e723 Stavroula L. KastoraAndreas KarakatsanisYazan A. Masannat12