Modern Search Analytics: What Are Patients Asking About Prostate Artery Embolization?

Patients considering elective prostate artery embolization (PAE), an emerging option for symptomatic benign prostatic hypertrophy (BPH), often discover and research this procedure through web searches. For each search term, Google compiles frequently asked questions and links users to websites with answers. The purpose of this study is to analyze this heretofore uncharacterized data for PAE, which may help inform patient awareness campaigns and aid medical decision processes.

Materials and Methods:

SearchResponse.io is a commercially available marketing database that has scraped the “People Also Ask” section of Google for questions, links, and popularity. For PAE, the database was queried for “PAE procedure” and “prostate artery embolization”. Questions were first categorized using Rothwell’s classification (Fact, Policy, Value), and then into additional subcategories (Fact: Specific Activities & Restrictions, Recovery, Technical Details, Cost, Condition Details; Policy: Indications, Management of Risks & Complications; Value: Pain, Evaluation of Symptoms, Evaluation of Intervention), consistent with existing literature {1}. Websites were classified into five categories (Commercial, Academic, Medical Practice, Government, and Social Media). JAMA Benchmark scores were determined for each webpage linked {2}. Two reviewers performed the classification; a third reviewer resolved discrepancies.

Results:

A total of 129 questions were extracted from 47 unique links at 39 unique domains. The most popular subcategories were technical details (37, 28.7%), evaluation of intervention (35, 27.1%), recovery (25, 19.3%), cost (24, 18.6%), indications (5, 3.9%), condition details (2, 1.6%), and pain (1, 0.8%). The most popular website categories were academic (78, 60.4%), medical practice (21, 16.3%), commercial (17, 13.2%), government (13, 10.1%).  JAMA scores (0-4) were highest for government (3.46), followed by commercial (3.17), academic (1.48), and medical practices (1.19).

Conclusion:

Our results suggest that patients considering PAE are most interested in learning more about the technical details and the value of undergoing PAE (such as clinical efficacy) and recovery time. Academic online resources were most often used to answer these questions, despite having relatively low JAMA benchmark scores. To help patients decide the most appropriate therapy, online resources should focus on PAE technical details and value proposition. Our results also suggests that the quality and reliability of online resources need improvement.