Purpose

Reddit is a social media platform that allows health care professionals (HPs) to anonymously interact with patients. We analyzed content about radiation therapy (RT) on Reddit.

Methods and Materials

Reddit.com/r/cancer was queried with 20 search terms related to RT: IMRT, 3D-CRT, SBRT, EBRT, XRT, radiation, radiotherapy, RT, radio, rad, rads, gamma, gamma knife, gammaknife, cyber knife, cyberknife, cyber, brachytherapy, brachy, and cobalt. The search aimed to identify all posts discussing RT. A random sample of posts and their top 3 comments was selected to generate qualitative thematic codes per author consensus, which were used to characterize all posts and their top 3 voted comments. Posts were analyzed for time to first reply, mention of any specific RT modality, whether a self-identified HP responded, and time to first highly voted comment by an HP.

Results

Exactly 190 posts about RT by 178 users were shared from February 2011 to May 2018, and 468 replies by 295 users were also analyzed. Twenty-nine of these users (9.8%) were HPs; however, 48 of 181 top comments were contributed by HPs compared with 45 of 288 non–top comments by HPs (odds ratio, 1.95; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.23-3.08; P < .004). The most common themes were treatment questions, chronology, and information; toxicities; and social support. The median time to first comment after posting was 64.0 minutes (95% CI, 53.0-82.0), and median time to first highly voted comment from an HP was 264.0 minutes (95% CI, 153.5-427.9; U = 4123.5; P < .0001 2-tailed). Fifty-three posts (27.9%) identified a specific RT modality, with proton therapy (7.4%), CyberKnife (5.3%), brachytherapy (4.2%), and whole brain radiation (4.2%) being the most common.

Conclusions

HPs did not reply often to RT posts and generally took longer to do so, but their replies were valued by users. Common themes included treatment questions, chronology, and treatment; toxicities; and social support. Proton therapy received notable attention.