What’s Trending? Analysis of TikTok Results for Prostate, Uterine, and Genicular Artery Embolization

Monday, March 6, 2023

12:00 PM – 1:00 PM

Location: Phoenix Convention Center, North Ballroom 120 D

Poster Presenter(s)

Faaiz Saad, BS (he/him/his)

Medical Student
University of Alabama at Birmingham Heersink School of Medicine

Disclosure(s): No financial relationships to disclose

Author/Co-author(s)

Theresa Caridi, MD

Vice Chair and Division Director
University of Alabama At Birmingham
AG

Andrew Gunn, MD

Program Director IR/DR
University of Alabama At Birmingham
Junjian Huang, MD

Assistant Professor
University of Alabama at Birmingham

Disclosure(s):

Faaiz Saad, BS: No financial relationships to disclose

Theresa Caridi, MD: Boston Scientific: Consultant (Ongoing), Speaking and Teaching (Ongoing); Cook Inc: Speaking and Teaching (Ongoing); PENUMBRA INC: Speaking and Teaching (Terminated); Terumo Medical: Speaking and Teaching (Ongoing); Trisalus Life Sciences: Advisory Committee or Review Panel Member (Ongoing); Varian Interventional Solutions: Speaking and Teaching (Ongoing)

Andrew Gunn, MD: Boston Scientific: Consultant (Ongoing), Speaking and Teaching (Ongoing); Penumbra: Research Grant Recipient (Ongoing); Varian: Consultant (Ongoing), Research Grant Recipient (Ongoing), Speaking and Teaching (Ongoing)

Purpose:

Social media has tremendous influence in patients’ lives and, as of 2021, TikTok has overtaken both Google and Facebook as the most accessed web domain. “Dr. Google” is quickly going to become “Dr. TikTok”. Content is only as good as the creator, as such it is important for us to characterize then entity producing the content that our patients will consume on TikTok.

Materials and Methods: Three different search queries (prostate artery embolization, uterine fibroid embolization, and genicular artery embolization) were entered into the TikTok mobile app and the top 50 results were recorded and further analyzed for likes, comments, account type, content type, and follower counts.

Results:

The study found that for the 3 search queries: prostate artery embolization, uterine fibroid embolization, and genicular artery embolization the top 50 results were comprised of TikToks from 43, 28, and 49 unique accounts respectively. Of the 150 results, 1 result was excluded from the study due to being in a language not understood by the data collector. The majority of posts were by non-healthcare type accounts (n=67), followed by physicians (n=36), and patients (n=35).

Non-US physicians had the highest average likes, views, and followers of the sampled account types. Most posts were informative/educational posts (n=56), followed by patient experience (n=21) and promotional items (n=8).

Conclusion: We found that the top TikTok results for prostate, uterine, and genicular artery embolization are primarily created by physicians or patients. The posts were mostly educational or discussed details about the procedure from the patient’s perspective. About 10% of the posts reviewed were unrelated or misinformed.