Introduction: Given the plethora of surgical options for benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH), it is important to understand which treatments patients are most interested in. We used Google Trends to analyze national interest in 5 common BPH surgeries. Methods: Google trends (http://trends.google.com) was queried with 5 different BPH surgeries using the terms: “TURP”, “Greenlight Laser Therapy”, “Urolift”, “Rezum”, and “Aquablation”. The geographical location was set to the “United States”. The time range was set to “2004 - present” which presented as January 2004 to August 2022. The data are presented as relative search interest (RSI) by each month of the time range. RSI is in the range of 0-100 with 100 being the peak popularity of the term, 50 being half of the peak popularity, and 0 representing insufficient data for the search interest to be determined. The RSI data of the 5 BPH surgeries from January 2004 to August 2022 are shown in Fig. 1. Results: There were noted increases in RSI of search terms “Urolift” and “Rezum” that began after publication of randomized control trials (RCTs) that showed adequate symptom relief and preservation of sexual function. Before the L.I.F.T study from January 2004 to December 2013, average RSI for “Urolift” was 1.4. After the L.I.F.T study from January 2014 to August 2022, average RSI was 33.1 with a peak of 93. Before the first multicenter Rezum RCT from January 2004 to May 2016, average RSI for “Rezum” was 0.7. From June 2016 to August 2022, average RSI for “Rezum” was 13.1, with a peak of 22. RSI for “TURP” and “Greenlight Laser Therapy” were stable and held the top two rankings until July 2016 when “Urolift” became the 2nd most searched term. As of August 2018, “Rezum” surpassed “Greenlight Laser Therapy” as the 3rd most searched term. “TURP” retained the top overall RSI the entire study period. RSI for “TURP” reached a peak of 100 in March 2022 and had an average RSI of 66.5 for the entire time range. Conclusions: Interest in the search terms “Urolift” and “Rezum” increased following the publication of RCTs and interest in “Urolift” is second only to “TURP”. Despite the advent of new surgical approaches, the search term “TURP” remains the most popular search term. Google Trends can be an effective tool for the evaluation of trends in patient interest in BPH surgery. SOURCE OF Funding: Dr. Daniels is funded by the NIH grants TL1 DK132768 and U2C DK129496. Dr. Galvan is funded by the Department of Defense Health Disparities Research Fellowship. Dr. Das is funded by the Patient Centered Outcomes in Urological and Gynecological Cancers (PCORT UroGynCan). Dr. Friedrich is funded by NIH grant T32.
