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Clinical Studies

Insight into the public’s interest in tumour treating fields

British Journal of Cancer volume 125, pages 901–903 (2021)Cite this article

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As comprehensively reviewed recently by Rominiyi et al. [1], the use of tumour treating fields (TTF) technology has emerged as a viable treatment option in both recurrent and newly diagnosed glioblastoma (GBM) [2] as well as in unresectable malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) patients [3]. To understand provider patterns in TTF utilisation, McClelland III et al. [4] surveyed GBM-treating physicians and surgeons in the United States in 2017. Of the 106 respondents, 81% were aware of the inclusion of TTF into the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) guidelines. In contrast, 31% of practices still lacked TTF-certified physicians to offer TTF therapy to GBM patients. Although the study had a major limitation of low survey response rate, it highlighted an opportunity to better educate and certify oncologists in TTF delivery. Beyond expert practitioners’ adoption rate, public awareness of this clinically efficacious and well-tolerated antimitotic therapy is currently unknown. As the internet has invariably become the primary source of health information for patients [5], our group sought to leverage available search engine query data as a proxy to understand whether the emergence of clinical data in support of TTF has translated to population-level awareness in this novel treatment modality.

The publicly available search engine query database, Google Trends [6], was reviewed from January 1, 2007, to January 1, 2021, with data limited to the United States. English-only search terms queried were generic identifiers, including “alternating electric field therapy” (AEFT) and “TTF”, as well as a known disease site-specific trade names, “Optune” for GBM and “Optune Lua” for MPM. Relative monthly search volume index (MSVI) was extracted from the database, with monthly search frequency represented by a scale ranging from a value of 100, denoting the highest monthly search frequency for the specific term to 0 or lowest monthly frequency. For context, relative MSVI of TTF terms were then compared to MSVI generated from baseline terms, “glioblastoma” and “mesothelioma”, over the same period. Student’s t test was used to quantify differences in MSVI averages between periods of interest. To account for the likely non-linear relationship between trends in MSVI versus time, polynomial regression analysis was employed.

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Fig. 1: Relative monthly search volumes from January 2007 to January 2021 for individual Google query terms.

Data availability

Data are accessible through Google Trends (http://www.google.com/trends).

References

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No funding was received to assist with the preparation of this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Radiation Oncology, NYU Grossman School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA

    David J. Byun, Aram S. Modrek & Erik P. Sulman

  2. Brain and Spine Tumor Center, Laura and Isaac Perlmutter Cancer Center, NYU Langone Health, New York, NY, USA

    Erik P. Sulman

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  1. David J. Byun
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Contributions

D.J.B., A.S.M. and E.P.S. contributed equally to conception, interpretation of data, and preparation of this manuscript. D.J.B. contributed to analysis of the data. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to David J. Byun.

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D.J.B. and A.S.M. have no conflicts of interest to report. E.P.S. has received research support and honoraria from Novocure Ltd.

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Byun, D.J., Modrek, A.S. & Sulman, E.P. Insight into the public’s interest in tumour treating fields. Br J Cancer 125, 901–903 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41416-021-01504-9

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