Abstract
Introduction and hypothesis
On April 16, 2019, the United States Food and Drug Administration announced a withdrawal on sales and distribution of transvaginal mesh products for pelvic organ prolapse. The aim of this study was to asses online user behavior on pelvic-mesh related articles after the withdrawal and to evaluate article accuracy.
Materials and methods
We used Google Trends© to identify the terms related to pelvic mesh that experienced increased activity after the FDA announcement. The terms were analyzed for worldwide social media engagement (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Reddit) between April 16–19, 2019. The top ten lay press articles shared for each term were evaluated. We also examined the top ten Google search results for each term on June 6, 2019, in the US to evaluate what information was available after peak interest subsided.
Results
During peak activity in April, 30 unique articles were identified after the FDA announcement. Two (6.7%) did not mention the April 2019 FDA announcement. Seven (23%) discussed mesh for stress urinary incontinence. After peak interest on June 6, 2019, Google identified 26 unique articles for the four terms. Seven (27%) did not mention the FDA announcement, and 3 (12%) mentioned mesh for incontinence.
Conclusions
Internet search patterns and social media behavior following the April 2019 ordered withdrawal on transvaginal mesh for pelvic organ prolapse reveal that some of the most disseminated information did not accurately or thoroughly distinguish the type of mesh discussed. This could lead to negative consequences for other mesh indications in female pelvic medicine and reconstructive surgery.
Similar content being viewed by others
Abbreviations
- FDA:
-
Food and Drug Administration
- POP:
-
Pelvic organ prolapse
- SUI:
-
Stress urinary incontinence
References
Wu JM, Hundley AF, Fulton RG, Myers ER. Forecasting the prevalence of pelvic floor disorders in US women: 2010 to 2050. Obstet Gynecol. 2009;114(6):1278–83. https://doi.org/10.1097/AOG.0b013e3181c2ce96.
Wu JM, Matthews CA, Conover MM, Pate V, Funk MJ. Lifetime risk of stress incontinence or pelvic organ prolapse surgery. Obstet Gynecol. 2014;123(6):1201–6. https://doi.org/10.1097/AOG.0000000000000286.
Public Health Notifications (Medical Devices) - FDA Public Health Notification: Serious Complications Associated with Transvaginal Placement of Surgical Mesh in Repair of Pelvic Organ Prolapse and Stress Urinary Incontinence. http://wayback.archive-it.org/7993/20170111190506/http://www.fda.gov/MedicalDevices/Safety/AlertsandNotices/PublicHealthNotifications/ucm061976.htm. Accessed August 2, 2019.
Health C for D and R. Public Health Notifications (Medical Devices) - FDA Public Health Notification: Serious Complications Associated with Transvaginal Placement of Surgical Mesh in Repair of Pelvic Organ Prolapse and Stress Urinary Incontinence. http://wayback.archive-it.org/7993/20170111190506/http://www.fda.gov/MedicalDevices/Safety/AlertsandNotices/PublicHealthNotifications/ucm061976.htm. Accessed August 27, 2019.
Souders CP, Eilber KS, McClelland L, et al. The truth behind Transvaginal mesh litigation: devices, timelines, and provider characteristics. Female Pelvic Med Reconstr Surg. 2018;24(1):21–5. https://doi.org/10.1097/SPV.0000000000000433.
McNab C. What social media offers to health professionals and citizens. Bull World Health Organ. 2009;87(8):566. https://doi.org/10.2471/BLT.09.066712.
Moorhead SA, Hazlett DE, Harrison L, Carroll JK, Irwin A, Hoving C. A New Dimension of Health Care: Systematic Review of the Uses, Benefits, and Limitations of Social Media for Health Communication. J Med Internet Res. 2013;15(4). https://doi.org/10.2196/jmir.1933
Ybarra ML, Suman M. Help seeking behavior and the internet: a national survey. Int J Med Inform. 2006;75(1):29–41. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2005.07.029.
Health Online 2013 | Pew Research Center. https://www.pewinternet.org/2013/01/15/health-online-2013/. Accessed August 2, 2019.
Gualtieri LN. The Doctor As the Second Opinion and the Internet As the First. In: CHI ‘09 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems. CHI EA ‘09. New York, NY, USA: ACM; 2009:2489–2498. https://doi.org/10.1145/1520340.1520352
Health C for D and R. Urogynecologic Surgical Mesh Implants. FDA. http://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/implants-and-prosthetics/urogynecologic-surgical-mesh-implants. Published April 16, 2019. Accessed June 17, 2019.
MacMillan C. Transvaginal Mesh: What Women Should Know - Stories at Yale Medicine. Yale Medicine. https://www.yalemedicine.org/stories/transvaginal-mesh/?fbclid=IwAR3q2HRf4Bi-YleO6ZzCXeAm6XRmkkfh60atU0I4N6hwNJicGmyVzRhfzlU. Accessed June 27, 2019.
FDA Announcement on Transvaginal Mesh for Prolapse - President’s Perspective - News | AUGS. https://www.augs.org/fda-announcement-on-transvaginal-mesh-for-prolapse/. Accessed August 2, 2019.
Society of Urodynamics, Female Pelvic Medicine & Urogenital Reconstruction | Update: Important Message About FDA Statement on MUS. https://sufuorg.com/about/news/message-about-fda-statement-on-mus.aspx. Accessed June 27, 2019.
Google Trends. Google Trends. https://trends.google.com/trends/?geo=US. Accessed August 27, 2019.
BuzzSumo: Find the Most Shared Content and Key Influencers. BuzzSumo. https://buzzsumo.com/. Accessed August 27, 2019.
Keyword Explorer: SEO Keyword Difficulty Tool and Competition Analysis. Moz. https://moz.com/tools/keyword-difficulty. Accessed August 19, 2019.
Key trends in social and digital news media | Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/10/04/key-trends-in-social-and-digital-news-media/. Accessed August 1, 2019.
Diviani N, van den Putte B, Giani S, van Weert JC. Low Health Literacy and Evaluation of Online Health Information: A Systematic Review of the Literature. J Med Internet Res. 2015;17(5). https://doi.org/10.2196/jmir.4018
AUGS SUFU MUS Statement. https://www.augs.org/assets/1/6/AUGS-SUFU_MUS_Position_Statement.pdf
Alsyouf M, Stokes P, Hur D, Amasyali A, Ruckle H, Hu B. ‘Fake News’ in urology: evaluating the accuracy of articles shared on social media in genitourinary malignancies. BJU International. 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1111/bju.14787
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
Poone Shoureshi: Project development, data collection, manuscript writing. No conflict of interest or disclosures.
Kamran Sajadi: Project development, manuscript writing. No conflict of interest or disclosures.
Kathleen Kobashi: Manuscript writing, project development. No conflict of interest or disclosures.
Wai Lee: Manuscript writing, project development, data collection. No conflict of interest or disclosures.
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Financial disclaimers/conflict of interest
None.
Prior presentations
Western Section of the American Urological Association; November 2019; Monterrey, CA, USA
Society of Women in Urology; January 17, 2020; New Orleans, LA, USA
Society of Urodynamics, Female Pelvic Medicine, and Urogenital Reconstruction; February 2020, Scottsdale, AZ, USA.
Additional information
Publisher’s note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Shoureshi, P.S., Lee, W., Kobashi, K.C. et al. Media coverage of the 2019 United States Food and Drug Administration ordered withdrawal of vaginal mesh products for pelvic organ prolapse. Int Urogynecol J 32, 375–379 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00192-020-04401-6
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00192-020-04401-6